Hearts Over Dracontias
by Isis and Neit
Summary: Charlie Weasley investigates a mysterious dragon killing.
1. A Dragon Falls

It was midnight in Romania. The stars had been overhead for hours. Their fragile light was washed out by dazzling, silver moonlight that lent an eerie glow to the darkness. The luminescent moonbeams filtered into the cliff-side cave where the dragon had made his home. Under the full moon, his scales gleamed like emeralds on velvet and his long, golden horns—so coveted by dragon poachers—glittered and glinted.

Resting at the cave entrance, he was watchful—a sentinel of the night. The dragon was one of four Romanian Longhorns that had not sought refuge within the protective limits of the nearby wizarding reservation. No, he and three others were the self-appointed guardians—the Fathers—of the others. They gazed outwards, in the cardinal directions, from the boundaries of the reservation. The dragon keepers at the reservation knew of the sentinels but left them to their watchful pursuits.

His kind had been hunted almost to the point of extinction before the wizards had founded the reservation in the Transylvanian Alps. Sensing a communal goal, the dragons had accepted the long overdue assistance of the humans. Now, during the daylight hours—beyond the telltale shimmer of the ironclad wards that surrounded the reservation—the Father watched with pride and satisfaction as younglings took to the air.

The dragon gazed out over the landscape towards Turnu Rosu, the steep mountain pass that linked Transylvania with Walachia in the south. Romania was never more beautiful than at night. The crystalline massifs of the Southern Carpathians reflected in the mirrored surface of a pristine glacial lake. And below that, the densely forested mountain slopes gave way to sub-alpine meadows. It was indeed a visually striking milieu.

His gaze turned upwards, to watch the sky solemnly from the warmth and comfort of his lair. His breath steamed in the chilly air as he let out a low, rumbling sigh. The stars had bad tidings in them. He had seen the coming of the war all those years ago in the stars, and now, tonight...

He stood up. The air tasted wrong. There was a sound as if the air were splitting open just off the peak of the cliff, a rip being made where there was no room for it. The dragon crouched at the entrance of his cave, not hiding, but ready to spring. There was a final rush of air, and then something blasted into existence ahead of him.

Two wizards in black, hooded cloaks streaked through the air astride gleaming broomsticks. The dragon unfurled his wings, roaring his protest. The Father sensed a darkness emanating from the circling wizards, and he breathed in deeply, the air rasping through his multiple lungs. He exhaled, simultaneously releasing a jet of fire that crackled and sparked in the icy night air.

The poachers had always come in larger teams; these two were no match against his firepower. The Father knew that his deafening roar would have carried to the reservation and the other sentinels. If these two knew what was good for them, they would leave now, before it was too late.

Deftly, the wizards dodged his fiery attack. Their black cloaks fluttered and rippled behind them as they dived steeply. Simultaneously, they released two jets of electric-blue energy from wands aimed carelessly over their shoulders. Missing him, the spells struck the cliff-side with a shower of cerulean blue sparks and wispy, glowing threads that fluttered and swirled in the air. The dragon snorted steam contemptuously; his hide was impervious to two minuscule spells. The dragon roared with fury at their impertinence.

He breathed in to generate another fiery reply at the ignorant wizards, who had circled for another attack. Halfway through his rasping inhalation, the Father swayed, suddenly dizzy and unbalanced. His gleaming eyes widened with surprise. He fell heavily onto the ledge outside the cave. The mountain seemed to tremble for a moment, and then the air was still.

The wizards—one far taller than his companion—descended to the ledge and alighted from their brooms. Keeping their faces shrouded, they moved quickly and with purpose, as if sensing that their time was limited.

_"Diffindo."_ There was an awful ripping sound as the dragon's thick skull split open, releasing an acrid stench that permeated the crisp air. There was a slight retch of protest from the taller wizard before they leant forward over the dragon's head, industriously collecting a part of the dragon.

As the three menacing forms of the other guardians approached, shadowed against the moon, the murderous thieves slung their legs over their brooms and kicked off victoriously before streaking in a steep dive off the edge of the cliff. In mid-dive towards the lake, they each performed a complicated loop, and the air seemed to ripple for a moment before it swallowed them. A sharp crack echoed mournfully against the cliff-face.

Corrosive dragon blood wound sinuously away from the Father's body, bubbling and etching into the crystalline rocks—tangible scars witnessing an inconceivable tragedy. The starlight seemed to fade slightly; the death of the Father witnessed from afar.


	2. An Icy Morning

Charlie groaned when his alarm clock rang loudly, rudely jerking him from a most pleasant dream about white, sandy beaches, an aquamarine ocean and dazzling sunshine—a definite sign that winter had settled in. He wasn't generally a morning person, and mid-winter mornings in Romania were sheer torture.

His hand snaked out from under the covers to press the snooze button. He patted the bedside table blindly for a moment before a sharp, stinging sensation tingled up his arm, jolting him to full wakefulness.

"Bloody Fred and George," he mumbled mutinously into his pillow. Their Christmas present was innocuous enough most mornings, but it randomly bit or shocked the user just when you'd forgotten its last misbehaviour.

He couldn't bring himself not to use their gift; he saw his family—those who remained of his family after the devastating war—seldom enough. Except for his youngest brother. Ron was staying with him—make that sponging off him—and Charlie had almost reached the end of his generally ample supply of patience.

When Ron had pitched up on his doorstep a month ago, he'd been delighted to see him and a little bemused by the fact that Fred and George had fired him and kicked him out. But then, he hadn't lived around Ron for any length of time since he'd left the Burrow after finishing his N.E.W.T.s ten years ago. At that time, Ron had been ten and youthfully bright and cheerful—hardly prone to the fits of temper and sullenness that Charlie was now privy to. Now, he understood exactly why his easygoing brothers had felt the need to turf Ron out on his ear.

It saddened him to see how his youngest brother was now. Yes, Ron must have had a tough time absorbing the after-effects of the war, but they all had, really. They had all lost family members, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. Not for the first time, he wondered if the family shouldn't have insisted that Ron see a Mind Healer after the war. He knew that Ron had seen so much death and hatred up close from his position next to Harry that it had to have affected him more profoundly.

He turned over onto his back and rubbed his eyes, finally opening them. It was still dark outside; work at the reservation started early with the morning feed of the younglings.

_"Lumos,"_ he murmured, stifling a yawn. The lights against the far wall flickered on. He blinked a little at the sudden rush of light and then focussed on the ceiling. Normally, Charlie would lie in bed until the second alarm went off, alternately planning his day and wishing he could sleep in a little longer.

However, this morning he was trying to find the right words to let Ron know that he wasn't impressed. That he'd better shape up or ship out, so to say. _And I can't just say, hey, Ron, you are a directionless prat. Find a job and get on with life. Can I?_

"No, that wouldn't be right at all. He's my younger brother." It wasn't often that Charlie would actively talk to himself out loud, but that was an indication of how stressed he was about the whole Ron situation.

He sighed, his breath expiring in a little cloud in the chilly air. Warming Charms seemed to seep into the thick stone walls of his flat, and it was permanently cold here in winter. He rented a flat in the wizarding community located on the outskirts of Bucharest. It served his purposes: a base to sleep at when he wasn't up at the reservation in the mountains. But since Ron had come to stay, he'd slept here every night. At first, he had been glad for the company, but later, he had stayed to keep an eye on his wayward brother. Shifting slightly in bed, Charlie realized that Ron hadn't come home the previous night at all when he heard the familiar squeak of the front door. Clenching his teeth, Charlie fought the urge to go storming into the living room to give Ron a piece of his mind.

_No, you want to be calm when you confront him. It won't do for him to go running home to Mum with tales of evil, angry Charlie, who went off on him and then kicked him out into the cold, icy streets of Bucharest. That's just asking for an undeserved Howler._

Charlie sat up in bed, sighing again. He hated confrontation. Thankfully, the order of his birth had allowed him to avoid a lot of that. Bill and Percy had gone on at it on their own, leaving him out of it most of the time. Now, it was his turn to get the wheels moving and give Ron something to think about.

"Get up, Charlie, and go deal with the mess now before it gets really bad." It was a now or never time. Never would be really nice, but he knew that it had to be done. Ron had been drifting aimlessly for long enough now. Charlie had watched him wasting his life away on the couch for a month, and who knew how he'd been with Fred and George?

Charlie actually wanted to send Ron back to their mother. That is where he should have stayed all along after the war had ended, until he was able to support himself. Instead, he broke Molly's heart by packing up and moving in with Fred and George, citing that his mother was a nagging, interfering old hag. Yes, their mother could be overly concerned sometimes, but Charlie could hardly blame her for nagging this new Ron. Sighing again, Charlie finally sat up in bed and rolled over so that his feet touched the icy floor. He reached for his wand, which lay next to the humming alarm clock and flicked it deftly as he stood, refreshing the faltering Warming Charm.

When he stayed here, he passed on a morning shower. The ghoul in the pipes was most active in the mornings, and one ended up getting frozen or scorched, depending on its mood. He dressed quickly in thick cargo pants, dragon hide boots and a warm Weasley jumper. He glanced at his watch briefly, noting with satisfaction that he had an hour before he had to Floo to the reservation. He opened his bedroom door and frowned when he had to shove it open against a pile of dirty clothes that Ron had left on the living room floor. _Honestly, he's here all day. You would think he'd at least pick up after himself._

He stepped through into the living room. Ron was lying on the couch on his back with one arm flung across his face, motionless. He was still fully dressed and hadn't even bothered to pull his shoes off. Charlie almost tripped over Ron's Firebolt—bequeathed to him in Harry's will—when he made his way over to stand next to the couch. He picked it up and leant it against the wall, running his index finger lightly over the gilt lettering before dropping his hand with a sigh. Harry Potter would be a name of legend in years to come. He was the young wizard who had died to save the wizarding world. But that didn't provide any comfort to those who had loved him. Charlie suspected that Ron's attitude and depression had a lot to do with feeling guilty that he had survived and that his friend had not. He knew that Ron missed Harry, but he had to realise that he was still alive and that life invariably moved on after losing somebody.

"Ron, I need to talk to you," he said, giving Ron's shoulder a gentle shake.

"Too early," Ron groaned. Charlie felt irritation begin to ripple at the ends of his nerves. The little sod was feigning sleep.

"I heard you come in five minutes ago," he retorted. He sat down in the armchair beside the sofa and Conjured two steaming cups of coffee. He tapped the toe of a dragon hide boot against Ron's thigh. "Sit up. I organised coffee," he said brusquely.

He blew over the surface of the coffee and then took a tentative sip, smiling at the initial taste of his favourite beverage. Some said that Conjured coffee didn't quite taste the same, but Charlie preferred it to the real stuff. That was probably because he'd spent so much time in the field with only the magically derived version. He narrowed his eyes slightly as Ron dragged himself up into a sitting position; you'd bloody swear it was the end of the world, the way he was moaning and groaning. Ron picked up his coffee cup, splashing a liberal amount on the wooden coffee table. He ignored it, not bothering to clean up after himself again, and that just added to Charlie's aggravation. It was simple enough to _Evanesco_ a spill, but Ron just didn't seem motivated to lift his wand for anything anymore.

"It wouldn't kill you to clean up after yourself, you know," he said, swishing his wand and muttering the Vanishing Spell. Ron rolled bloodshot eyes at him and slurped his coffee loudly. Charlie was finding it harder and harder to stay calm. He could swear that Ron was being annoying on purpose.

"Where were you last night?" Charlie asked, leaning back and resting one booted ankle on the opposite knee. Ron looked like he'd gone bush diving. And he reeked of Firewhisky and stale cigarette smoke.

"Out." Ron barely glanced up at him, choosing to scratch his neck and yawn open-mouthed instead.

Charlie huffed disgustedly, but refrained from launching into the now-familiar lecture about the dangers of Bucharest's nightlife and dodgy nightclubs where vampires waited in the shadows for drunken people to stumble into them. Ron had heard it all before, on previous mornings such as this.

"You didn't pitch at the interview that I organised at the bookshop," he said somewhat neutrally, struggling to keep the accusatory tone from his voice.

"I was busy," Ron answered, propping his feet up on the coffee table.

Charlie stared at him and shook his head with absolute amazement. "Busy doing what, Ron? Eating me out of house and home? You've been busy doing nothing on my sofa for just over a month, now." Charlie stared at Ron. Ron stared into the depths of his coffee cup, studiously ignoring his brother.

Charlie sighed. "Seriously, Ron, I think you should go back to England and live with Mum at the Burrow, find a job, finish your N.E.W.T.s, get on with life. Do something constructive, for Merlin's sake!"

Ron's ears turned pink, but he continued to ignore Charlie. Charlie rubbed his forehead; he felt an impending headache, induced by stress in all likelihood. His tone softened. "The war has been over for six months now. Life has to go on. Dad and Percy would want that… Harry too." He gave Ron an imploring look. "And what about your friends who made it through the war: Hermione, Seamus, Neville? Don't shut them out forever." Friendships were special, but if you neglected them for long enough, they would eventually wither and fade to nothing but a casual acquaintance eventually.

"_She_ shut me out," Ron sneered, "long before the war ended. And Neville is as thick as two planks. I'd rather have no friends than those two, thanks." Charlie knew that Hermione had broken off their relationship sometime during the war, but he hadn't been aware of how resentful Ron was about it. He'd assumed it had been a mutual decision.

"Well, if it wasn't going to work, then maybe that was a good thing," Charlie said, shrugging. His brother was acting like he was a pre-teen, not an adult twenty year old.

"Says he who hasn't had a girlfriend since Hogwarts," Ron jeered nastily. "You're just uptight because you haven't had a shag in years." Ron crossed his arms over his chest and tucked his chin down defiantly.

Charlie opened his mouth to counter Ron's nasty jibe when the fireplace flared and shimmered green.

"Charlie? Charlie, you there, mate?" The broad Australian twang of his fellow dragon keeper, Trent Fleming, who was stationed temporarily at the reservation, rang through the small living room.

Charlie frowned; he wasn't due at work for another forty minutes. That could only mean that there were problems. _Damn, damn, damn._ He sighed, gave Ron a 'we're not finished talking' look and stood, crossing to kneel in front of the hearth.

"Morning, Trent," he said, nodding at the blonde head floating in mid-fire. "What's going on?" He liked Trent—he was quiet and serious about his work. He was the same age as Charlie, and sometimes Charlie wished that Ron would emulate his friend's attitude about life and work.

"G'day. Volkov asked me to Floo you, Charlie," he said, looking even more serious than usual. "About five hours ago… somebody killed the southern sentinel." Trent's voice sounded incredulous.

Charlie's jaw dropped and his eyes widened with surprise. The sentinels were the oldest and wisest of the Romanian Longhorns, and the keepers steered clear of them. "Poachers?" he asked, raking a hand through his dark auburn hair.

"Don't think so, mate. You'll see when you get here." Charlie's eyebrows rose a little at that comment, but he left it for the moment. The Floo wasn't always the most secure connection, so he supposed there was something off about the killing. Trent continued to speak hurriedly. "We've got the crime scene cordoned off. Volkov wants you to deal with the Aurors. They're arriving in about fifteen minutes."

"I'll be there now," Charlie confirmed. The Floo connection cut off with a little puff of green smoke. Charlie stood up and grabbed his thick wool-lined coat from the coat rack. "I have to go," he said to Ron, who was recumbent again.

"So I heard," came the sarcastic reply.

Charlie took a handful of Floo powder from the pewter pot on the mantle. "We'll finish our talk later," Charlie promised. The dragon reservation had an Apparition shield around it, much like the one at Hogwarts. The Floo Network was the only way in and out.

"Whatever."

Charlie was too rushed to argue with Ron, and he tossed the powder into the fire. "Carpatii Meridionali," he said clearly. He tucked his elbows in at his sides and disappeared from sight—whizzing past countless fires lit against the frosty morning—towards whichever mystery surrounded the sentinel's death.


	3. Carpatii Meridionali

Charlie stepped out of the enormous stone fireplace and into the kitchen at the dragon reservation's headquarters. He shook his head a little to steady the spinning sensation, which had not quite wound down its impetus yet. Before stepping over the fireguard onto the rough stone floor, he brushed off the residual layer of soot that always seemed to cling in a static aura after travelling via the Floo Network.

Charlie glanced up from his coat. Trent and his girlfriend, Janira, stood in an embrace across the room on one of the shaggy fur rugs, which were scattered here and there. His arms were at her waist, with hers wound around his neck. They were standing close, so close that their foreheads were touching. The unmistakable intimacy and the aura of shared comfort between them had Charlie's heart and stomach clenching with an unwelcome wave of envy. Few understood the relationship between keeper and dragon, and while Jani wasn't a keeper, she had apprenticed with Charlie several years ago before choosing to pursue a career in the wider field of Magizoology. Trent was lucky to have such a beautiful, understanding woman to share his sorrow with.

Charlie had been in love once, back when the Order of the Phoenix had been restarted in 1995. Gwyneth Jones, Hestia's younger sister, had joined the Order, along with Charlie and Bill. He'd never really felt the time was right for any major declarations, though. Not during the wartime uncertainty and desperation. He'd contented himself with friendship, but had always told himself that he'd wait until Voldemort's remains were smouldering to steal her heart. And then the Death Eaters had stolen her life. Charlie had promised himself that he'd never leave feelings like that unspoken again.

Charlie and Trent worked well together, although the Australian wizard had only been in Romania for a couple of weeks, now. After the war had ended—in the spirit of reconstruction and rebuilding trust in wizarding Europe—many of the wizarding institutions and Ministries had developed exchange programmes for young professionals. Trent was in Romania for three months, on loan from the British Ministry, and Jani left the Magical Menagerie in the capable hands of her assistant when she visited him.

They turned their heads and smiled faintly. Charlie knew how they were feeling. It was still hard to believe that someone would have attacked one of the sentinels. So much history had been lost along with the Father—they were ancient dragons that had silently observed humanity for many years. He sighed inwardly and thought that another cup of coffee might go down well.

"Hi, Charlie. I'll get you some coffee," Jani said. Charlie nodded. She had an almost uncanny ability to guess what he was thinking or wanted; a remnant quirk from her apprentice years, when it had been her job to skivy around after him (and to muck out the hatchling stalls at his whim).

Trent tilted his head in greeting, quiet as always. He was very economical with his words. "Morning." Trent looked tired, and his usually untidy mop of blonde hair was in even worse disarray than usual. It was understandable; he'd likely been up all night, long past his usual watch.

"Morning." Somehow, small talk didn't seem appropriate in the sombre texture of the room. He knew they would have to wait for the Aurors to arrive before detailing the facts, but he was eager to find out the basics about what had occurred that morning as well.

He leant against the edge of the kitchen table, crossing his legs at the ankles and folding his arms across his chest. "So, what happened?" he asked.

"Well, last night was quiet until around one o' clock when the other sentinels sounded an alarm. They sounded so mournful, like they were in pain." Trent shook his head slightly. "Anyway, Hildebrand and I were still on duty, so we left on broomstick and headed out to sentinel territory. We…" Trent let out a deep breath and seemed to be trying to settle his stomach before he started talking again. "We found the remains of the southern Father. It was terrible, mate." Charlie had to lean closer to hear Trent talk, now. "They had cut open his head."

"Took the horns?" Charlie asked. Poachers, he suspected.

Trent shook his head, frowning. "They left the horns and the heartstring, so I don't think they were poachers." Trent shrugged.

"Hmm." Charlie nodded, thinking hard, and then looked up when Jani handed a steaming mug of coffee to him. "Thanks, Jani." She smiled and moved to stand next to Trent, slipping her arm around his waist and resting her head on his shoulder.

As he sipped the coffee, Charlie took the time to digest the information. He had never heard of a dragon killing where some saleable part of the dragon wasn't taken. The horns were the most valuable part of the Romanian Longhorns, the primary reason for founding the reservation. Other than their parts, there was no reason to kill the creatures—the wards around the reservation were tight, and there hadn't been a rogue dragon attack in many years.

The fireplace flared green, and the whooshing sound of an activated Floo Network connection alerted them that somebody was coming through. Charlie shook himself from his internal reverie and glanced towards the fireplace. A woman tumbled into the kitchen, her long red hair obscuring her face.

Charlie started a little. "Ginny?" Logically, he knew that it wasn't his sister (security clearance to the reservation was tight), but he could not help but wish to see a family member who might actually smile and be good company. Ginny refused to visit Charlie while Ron was staying with him anyway; she and Ron were not on speaking terms at the moment.

The woman laughed and brushed her hair from her face, revealing amused indigo eyes. "Wotcher, Charlie. Now, do you really think that your sister would have left my delicious cousin behind in England to come and visit you?" Tonks asked, grinning broadly.

She was, of course, referring to Ginny and Draco's relationship. Draco and Snape had played a pivotal role during the war. They had all been surprised to discover that Snape had been acting on Dumbledore's orders and the under the duress of an Unbreakable Vow. It had taken a while for most of them to accept that the two Slytherins had been determined to see Voldemort's downfall, but they had proved their worth in spades.

As Tonks stepped forward into the kitchen, she tripped over the fireguard, sending the fire pokers clanging to the stone floor. "Bugger." Charlie stood to help her up.

"Just the same as always, eh?" he teased lightly. He and Tonks had been in Gryffindor together at Hogwarts, and they were still good friends. He was so glad to see that she and Remus were happy together and planning a wedding. He had been the one to give Remus a pep talk, just before Dumbledore had died, actually. That had been a miserable year for both Remus and Tonks, and Charlie had been glad to see Remus coming to his senses about the situation.

"Trent Fleming, Janira Pejay, this is Nymphadora Tonks, world class Auror," he said, winking at Tonks.

"Tonks, if you please," she said, huffing a little at Charlie. Tonks raised her eyebrows at Jani. "I know you from somewhere... I'm sure of it..."

Jani smiled, as though used to the question. "I own the Magical Menagerie."

Tonks nodded. "I bought my Crup from you! So, we're practically family!" Tonks beamed at Jani. "Of course, Remus wouldn't let me buy a Jarvey, but at least a Jarvey wouldn't try to eat my Muggle relatives!"

Trent snorted with amusement. "Trust me, mate," he said with a long-suffering grimace, "they're more trouble than anything."

Charlie couldn't help but agree; Dorak had insulted most of the reservation staff already, and was lucky it was winter, or else he'd have been banished to the grounds.

Jani glanced up briefly at the complicated-looking clock above the large mantelpiece and sighed. "I've got to get going, sadly. I wish I could stay, but we're getting a shipment of Fire Crabs in today." Jani kissed Trent goodbye, stepped towards the fireplace and Floo'd to her shop in Diagon Alley.

Tonks turned to Charlie and Trent. "Now, then. To business." She rubbed her hands together and scrunched up her face, concentrating. Her hair shortened to an impish cut, and the hue deepened to a midnight black. "I'm in mourning for the dragon," she said seriously.

Charlie shook his head. Yes, same old Tonks. He cleared his throat. "Right, then. We'd better head to the scene of the crime and let our _Auror_ here investigate the visual aspect of the crime. We can only hope that some sort of clue was left behind."

They Apparated to the ledge outside of the sentinel's cave, lead by a guiding beacon that Volkov had set up for them earlier. It emitted a magical energy pulse that guided their Apparition, as the ledge was rather narrow. This is why the initial investigative journey by the keepers had been done on broomstick. Now, the Apparition wards around the reserve had been lowered to allow the investigation to proceed expediently.

Charlie wrinkled his nose at the acrid scent of the Father's blood, which had etched a deep, curving trough into the ledge. His stomach lurched, but he managed to stay in control of his body. While this wasn't the first dragon he had ever seen killed, it was the worst mutilation he had ever seen. The dragon's head, three foot high, lay split in half, revealing gleaming white bone and shredded, scaly hide. Charlie put his hand over his mouth and leant forward, frowning when he noticed that the skull was empty, the dragon's brain removed.

He grimaced again and shook his head. "Merlin, this is really bad. His bloody brain is gone! How could someone get this close to a Longhorn sentinel, much less kill him like this?"

There was a silence from Tonks and Trent as they absorbed the horrific sight. After a few moments, Tonks cleared her throat and started moving around the massive body of the slain dragon. She snapped on a pair of latex gloves, muttering about Kingsley and stupid Muggle gloves that cut off circulation. Trent and Charlie shared an amused look. Somehow, Tonks had managed to diffuse the tense situation with her odd brand of humour. Then, she pulled a dictation quill from her robe and started noting her observations.

"The dragon's head has been spilt open cleanly with what appears to be a modified Slicing Spell," she said, leaning forward to have a look. She had the advantage of morphing a nose without nostrils, which Charlie thought was really nifty.

She glanced up at Trent and Charlie, who were standing off to the side now, observing her investigation. "So, unlike most poaching it seems that only the head was cut open and the brain removed. Is that a typical poaching method?"

Charlie shook his head. "No, this isn't normal at all. Poachers would have taken the hide, claws and at least a couple of teeth. That is where the value is. The head—" He paused as if trying to remember something he had seen before. "I remember reading something about the head ages ago, but I can't remember exactly what it was, now." Shrugging, Charlie looked over at Trent to see if the other keeper knew anything.

Trent gave him a blank look and lifted one shoulder. "You're the reader, mate..."

Charlie shrugged, but there was still something that niggled in the back of his mind, frustratingly unreachable, about the dragon's head and the significance thereof. "I'll think about it and get back to you, Tonks."

She smirked a little. "That's what you always said, Chuck," she teased. She frowned at the parchment floating next to her. "Oi, scratch that last bit." She walked around the dragon again, looking for something besides the head that seemed to be out of place. On her second rotation, she tripped over the broad tail of the Father and swore loudly. Molly Weasley would have had a conniption, hearing that sort of language, even from one of her boys. She put out her hands to push herself up and frowned. "What's this then?" she said, holding a wispy shred of what looked like blue paper for view between her latex-covered fingers.

Charlie and Trent moved closer. "Hmm," Charlie mused. "Looks like grass to me, but it's not native to this area," he said, looking at the other two for confirmation.

Trent nodded his agreement. "Never seen blue grass before, though. Well, not neon blue at any rate. And you're right—that kind of grass doesn't grow around here."

Tonks placed a sample of the grass into a small plastic packet. "It might have some residue of a potion or something on it. I'll have Neville and Hermione take a look at it." Neville was apprenticed to Professor Sprout at Hogwarts, and Hermione worked in the Potions research division at the Ministry. "Gives me an excuse to visit London for a bit." Her mischievous expression told of somebody else that she'd probably visit, too.

"How are they doing?" Charlie asked.

Tonks lifted a shoulder. "Oh, Neville seems to be in his element. He's even given up being heartbroken after Luna told him that her destiny was in Egypt… without him." She chuckled. "Susan Bones seems to have helped with that issue."

She put her quill and parchment, along with her sample back into a robe pocket and scratched her head. "Hermione's working hard... nothing new. She... erm… seems to be much happier now that your brother's here with you."

"Lucky me," Charlie muttered darkly.

Tonks gave him a quizzical glance, then continued her news update, "She's been very mysterious about her after work life, though. I reckon she's hiding a new man." She flashed a grin. "And that, gents, is your gossip update, fresh from the source. Well, I can't see anything else that might give us any clues about what happened. Hopefully, that grass will give us a starting point. The perpetrators must have been on broomstick, I reckon. Not much other way to access this ledge if you don't have an Apparition beacon."

Trent and Charlie nodded in agreement. "I'll see what I can dig up about the dragon's head," Charlie said. "Thanks for coming out, Tonks. It was good to see you again. Keep us posted on the progress?"

"You betcha," she said, saluting.

The three of them Apparated from the cliff ledge, leaving the Father's body for Volkov to take care of. The keepers would hold a memorial of sorts for the ancient dragon. It was part tradition, part respect.

The rest of the day passed in a subdued atmosphere, and Charlie was only too pleased to Floo back to his flat, even though another confrontation with his brother was undoubtedly inevitable.


	4. Brothers Weasley

Charlie stepped out of the fireplace with a sigh, looking around for Ron. But the flat was quiet as a whisper, and there was no sign of his errant brother. Charlie wasn't sure whether to be angry or relieved. Angry because a trail of dirty clothing punctuated the living room floor in twisted, sweaty piles right up to the bathroom door, and a large stack of dirty dishes was balanced precariously in the kitchen sink. Relieved because he'd had a long, emotional day, and he had little heart or patience in reserve.

Shaking his head, the corners of his mouth turned downwards with heavy disappointment, Charlie stepped into his bedroom, which was the only place that Ron hadn't left his mark. After arriving home one day to find that Ron had scratched through all his drawers, Charlie had put a Locking Charm on his door. Brothers shouldn't have to lock their brothers out of their rooms (except when they were Fred and George and you didn't want your space booby-trapped), but Ron had left him little choice. He owned several expensive Magizoology texts, and he didn't want sticky fingerprints ruining his treasured collection.

Charlie pulled off his jacket, and he sat, cross-legged, in front of his bookshelf. He ran his fingertips along the gilt and leather spines, musing. They were arranged in alphabetical order by author, and Scamander dominated the bottom end of the collection.

Once, during a Burrow summer, his mother had tilted her head sideways to examine his bookshelf when she'd come into his and Bill's room to clean. "Charlie," she'd said, a surprised lilt to her voice, "they're in alphabetical order. I thought only Percy did that!" It was like she'd compartmentalised her sons, to keep them defined and apart, he'd thought. Bill was the good son, the clever son. Percy was neat and diligent, a hard worker. Fred and George were free-spirited, full of good humour. By the time Ron came along, there weren't that many unique characteristics left. So, he'd been Harry Potter's friend, in the end. And then Harry had died, and it seemed like Ron had lost himself, his definition had blurred around the edges.

Charlie knew his books by heart—each chapter was like an old friend—and he dropped his hand as he sighed: there was nothing in them that would give him the solution to the dragon puzzle… nothing that would define or explain the conundrum.

Charlie decided that a cuppa would be the best way to lift his spirits—in the Weasley tradition, the beverage soothed all hurts, softened hard knocks, eased the soul. Entering the kitchen made him rethink that plan. It looked like Ron had used every single cup, glass, and plate that Charlie owned. The top of the stove wasn't white anymore, but crusted with whatever Ron had made himself for lunch. A stinking frying pan with a thick layer of hardened fat had Charlie gagging slightly at the rancid smell that was coming from that direction. His little kettle cowered in the corner, as though it were afraid it'd be buried under a landslide of crockery if it made any sudden movements.

Instead of backing out of the kitchen, he whipped out his wand and started cleaning up, flicking and jabbing it a little more vigorously than the charms strictly called for. _Merlin, Ron, how hard is it to pull out your wand and cast a couple of Cleaning Charms?_ He frowned as he Levitated a pile of clean dishes into a cupboard: if he really thought about it, he couldn't recall seeing Ron use magic at all lately.

Once the kitchen was back to rights, Charlie coaxed the kettle out of the corner and set it on the stove, then rummaged in the cupboards for something to eat. Unsurprisingly, there was very little to choose from, as it appeared that Ron had eaten mostly everything that was edible. The pepper grinder sat alone on the shelf, looking forlorn. Slamming the cupboard door, Charlie jerked a drawer open and retrieved the take-away menus. He was too tired to deal with going out to shop for food now, and he decided to get a proper dinner. The kettle whistled happily, sending a jet of steam into the air, letting Charlie know that he could now proceed with making his tea.

Charlie sipped at his tea while flicking through the take-away menus that he'd brought back from London. Settling on Indian, Charlie sent his order for Lamb Madras, jasmine rice and garlic naan through the Floo. Five minutes later, the Floo Network flared to life, and a white-clad arm waved his dinner order in the air. "Lamb Madras for two," a voice called.

Grateful to have something other than the untidy living room to focus on, Charlie jumped up from the couch and bounded over to the fireplace. He took the parcel and paid for the dinner. The spicy scent reminded him of the war years when some or other form of take-away had been the staple dinner many a night. Indian had always been his favourite, though. He reflected that it was great to be a wizard, able to order take-away through the Floo Network from his favourite shop in London without a second thought about the logistics of the issue.

He went into the kitchen and served himself, leaving Ron's portion in the packet for when he deigned to come back home. Charlie had to wonder where Ron was; he didn't seem to have all that many friends in Romania. Well, none that he'd introduced to Charlie. Charlie just hoped he hadn't gone out drinking again. It was starting to become a worrisome habit of his younger brother's.

He sat on the couch, eating off his lap, reflecting on the events of the day. The reasons for the dragon killing were beyond him at this stage of the investigation. Something still nagged at the back of his mind—like a secret just out of reach—about the way that the dragon had been killed. He needed to find some detailed reference material because he was sure he'd read something pertinent somewhere before. The trouble was, Charlie had read so many Care of Magical Creatures books during and since leaving Hogwarts, it was impossible to recall which book it had been, let alone what the book had said.

Maybe it was time to visit the Restricted Section at Hogwarts again, to see Hagrid, to feed rock cakes to Fang under the table. A rare rush of nostalgia and homesickness ached in his heart for a moment, and his curry-dipped bit of naan was just a little difficult to swallow.

Just as he finished his dinner, the Floo flared to life again. Charlie glanced up sharply, wondering who was calling. He hoped to Merlin it wasn't his mother—a rather uncharitable thought, yes, but she'd have a cow if she saw what his flat looked like at the moment.

"Oi, Chaz! You home?"

He breathed a little sigh of relief when he heard that it was Bill. Bill was, and possibly always had been, Charlie's favourite brother. Some of it was that they'd shared most of their Hogwarts years together, but they had always had an easy camaraderie, even before then. Both of them were intelligent daredevils, and they shared many of the same life philosophies. But, where Bill had always charming and gregarious, Charlie was slightly more introspective and intense. The Chaser and the Seeker, both in Quidditch and life.

Charlie remembered the night Bill had been attacked by Fenrir Greyback—he'd been enraged, gutted, and guilty for not having been with the Order that night. When the bloodthirsty sadist had finally been hunted down and killed by werewolves loyal to the Order, Charlie had felt immense relief and sadistic satisfaction. Sometimes, he wondered what that said about him. Mostly, he tried not to think about it.

He stood, putting his empty plate on the coffee table, and walked over to the fireplace. His face bore his first broad grin of the day at the sight of Bill's scarred face. Charlie had become accustomed to the scars now, but they'd been a huge shock when he'd first seen the evidence of the savagery.

He settled cross-legged in front of the fireplace, eager for a talk with his older brother. Perhaps Bill would provide insight... into his book problem and perhaps his brother problem, too. "Bill, how're you doing?"

"Freezing my bollocks off, but otherwise good. You?" Bill's grin was good natured. He'd never let the attack get to him like some would have. Where some would have retreated behind heavily guarded barriers to lick their wounds, Bill had been more active for the Order than ever after his ordeal, perhaps even more determined to see the end of the war and spare others his fate. He still ate his steak raw, though.

Charlie snorted a little, feeling some of his tension from his hellish day bleed away. "Freezing in Egypt? You have got to be kidding! You should try it here for a bit. How's Fleur adjusted to the move, by the way?" he asked.

Now that the war was over, Bill had resumed his work at the Gringotts branch in Cairo. He'd heard that Bill was even more adept at Curse Breaking now than he had been before he'd gone on extended leave to work with the Order. Perhaps it was the slight edge of the wolf in him… who knew?

Whenever Charlie asked after Fleur, Bill would get that look on his face: the one that said that he still couldn't believe that the beautiful witch had wanted to marry him after his attack. "Oh, she's loving it," he said with that dreamy-eyed look of disbelief. "She's teaching 'Eengleesh' at the local wizarding school, if you can believe that one." Bill's expression sobered a little in the next moment, though. "Listen, Chaz, why I called... it's about Ron. He Floo'd this morning, wanting to know if he could come to Cairo and live with Fleur and me for a while. What the hell is going on? First Fred and George, now you..."

Charlie scowled. "I haven't kicked him out, if that's what you wanted to know," he said sourly. "Well, not yet, at any rate." He sighed heavily. "Merlin, Bill, I don't know what's wrong with him. He sleeps all day, drinks all night. Never fucking cleans up after himself. He doesn't even pretend to be looking for a job. I mean, enough is bloody enough, you know?" Charlie threw his hands into the air disgustedly. "I reckon we should just send him back to Mum. She'll sort him out quick enough."

Bill snorted. Charlie had a good idea of what that snort was all about: while their mother had a reputation of being hard-nosed with her children, Bill had always thought that she had a soft spot for Ron because of all that had happened while Ron had been Harry Potter's best mate.

"He's that bad, then?" Bill asked. "I thought that the twins had just been overreacting. You know how they are." Bill frowned a little. "Nah, let's not send him to her yet. Perhaps some tough love will help him? Too bad Percy's gone. You know he could always get Ron to do things, even if Ron never really respected him. He had Mum's scary qualities."

Charlie nodded sadly. During the war, Percy had finally seen the light and rejoined the family, only to be slain by Death Eaters on his first mission for the Order. He thought life was horribly ironic sometimes.

Bill changed the subject, obviously seeing that he'd depressed Charlie a little by talking of their lost brother. "So, little brother, how was work today?"

Charlie's expression became even gloomier at Bill's obvious attempt to turn the subject to lighter matters.

Bill winced—his change of subject had obviously not helped Charlie's mood. "What happened?"

Charlie sighed. "There was a dragon slaying last night. It was really bad; I've never seen anything like it before." Charlie's voice broke over the last sentence as the memories of the morning hit him hard.

Bill's face creased into a concerned frown. "Aw, I'm sorry to hear that. You've seen dragon poaching before, though, Chaz. What was so different about this one?"

Charlie ran a hand over his face and through his hair, exhaling an exhausted breath. "Thing is, they didn't take anything they could sell." He bit his lip and rolled his eyes. "I can't really talk about it over the Floo, though. The Aurors are still investigating. Tonks, if you can believe that one."

Bill nodded. "I understand. Gringotts won't let us near the Floo for business calls. I have to Portkey in for every bloody meeting." Bill laughed, amusement creasing the parallel scars that marred his cheek. "What did she trip over this time?" he asked sardonically. A hint of amusement sparkled in his eyes.

Charlie had witnessed that she was still as clumsy as ever. If anything, being head over heels for Remus had only made it worse. "Just about everything," Charlie said, snickering slightly.

He frowned again, returning to his dilemma. "I dunno, there's just... something niggling about the case, though. I read something somewhere, and now I can't remember where." He tapped the wooden floor with his boot, annoyed at himself.

"Typical," Bill said, rolling his eyes. "Well, if you want a good collection of old tomes, you should try the wizarding library in Alexandria. They have books that they've even forgotten about. Way cool place. If you're going to find any obscure fact, you'll find it there. And the librarians are usually way helpful, too," Bill said helpfully. "And that way, you can stop in for a visit." He flashed a roguish grin at Charlie, which might have actually scared somebody who didn't know him.

Charlie returned the grin. "Thanks, Bill. I think I'll do that." Perhaps a visit to Egypt would be easier than facing his mother, who'd make the Inquisition look like playschool. He grimaced at the thought. "What the fuck are we going to do about Ron, though? I'm not bloody leaving him here while I'm gone." If this was what his flat looked like while he was here, he didn't want to imagine what Ron would get up to with him gone.

"Fleur is probably going to whip my arse, but it's fine to send him this way," Bill said. His little smirk indicated that he probably didn't think that was a bad idea, being tied up and whipped by a half-Veela. "I'll try and see if I can get him to see a little sense."

Charlie nodded. "Thanks, Bill," he said. "I'll probably head down to Egypt tomorrow, if I ever get this place cleaned up," he said, shuddering at what must have been a week-old piece of toast lurking under the coffee table, like a dirty secret. "I'll see you, then."

"Later." Bill disappeared, and the emerald-green flames receded, leaving Charlie staring at an empty fireplace.

He glanced up when he heard the door squeak open. The prodigal brother had finally returned, it seemed. _Probably because he's hungry_, Charlie thought uncharitably.

"Ron." He kept his voice neutral… a constant struggle for him lately.

"What's for dinner?" Ron asked without preamble as he dropped his jacket to the floor, ignoring the coat rack that stood less than two feet away from him.

Charlie rolled his eyes and stood. "Good to see you, too, Ron," he said sardonically. "Indian take-away in the kitchen. And you're welcome," he said, without waiting for the thank-you that would likely not be forthcoming.

He picked up the pile of plates off the coffee table. "I have to go to Alexandria tomorrow. You're going to stay with Bill for a while, so you'd better pack up after dinner."

Ron gave a non-committal grunt as he disappeared into the kitchen, although Charlie knew he'd contacted Bill about staying there. _Ungrateful little brat. You'd think he'd at least be pleased he's getting his own way._

Two hours later, Charlie had showered, cleaned the flat, cleared his trip via Floo-call to the reservation, moaned at Ron for leaving his dinner plate on the coffee table, packed a bag for the trip to Egypt, and nagged Ron until he'd done the same.

Exhausted, he lay on his back in the dark, watching the shadows shift on the ceiling as clouds danced across the moon. He hoped that he'd be able to find the answers he sought in Egypt, and he hoped that Bill would find a way to get through to Ron.

He sighed and closed his eyes. _It's no use agonising over that now_, he thought. Finally, he drifted off to sleep after what seemed like the longest day of his life.


	5. From alQahirah to Aleksandreia

Charlie winced, drawing his neck into his shoulders reflexively as he hissed a sharp intake of breath through clenched teeth.

"_That_ was close," he muttered to himself, relaxing his death-grip on his wand handle.

The taxi had pulled into the traffic abruptly, amidst a herald of angry hooters, screeching brakes and gestures from other commuters. He'd gone for his wand out of sheer reflex. He let out a breath; the Egyptian Obliviators would not have been happy with him if he'd Levitated the car or miraculously prevented an accident with an elastic Shield Charm. Although he loved so many Muggle things, it was obviously not a world that he belonged in.

Charlie pressed his temple against the glass and stared out of the window as the little black and white taxi bumped along the traffic-congested El-Tahrir bridge, which joined the Nile island of Gezira to the western parts of Cairo. The taxi had no rear-view mirror, there wasn't a door handle on his side, and the springs in the back seat creaked and poked his arse uncomfortably as the driver ramped over potholes and uneven bits in the road. But still, Charlie thought the eccentric taxis were part of the city's charm… a quaint Muggle quirk that he loved. His father had rubbed off on him in ways that he hadn't quite admitted to himself yet.

The new, modernised Egyptian Ministry of Magic was located on the island, hidden from Muggle sight between the Opera House and the Cairo Tower. He and Ron had taken the International Floo Connection from Bucharest into Cairo, and now they were headed west to Cairo's magical community in Heliopolis, where Bill and Fleur lived.

"Why do we have to take a Muggle taxi?" Ron's voice was petulant. "We _could_ have Apparated, you know."

Charlie glanced up at his brother, who was slouching next to him, staring glassy-eyed out of the other window. Although he looked slightly slack-jawed, Ron's leg was jiggling impatiently, and his long, bony fingers drummed against his knee. Charlie sighed. The trip had been tense so far, with Ron acting like Charlie had committed an Unforgivable by wanting to leave him with Bill (when Charlie _knew_ that Ron had asked Bill if he could stay with him just yesterday).

"Line three of the Metro will be built eventually," Charlie said mildly. "You know that you need an Apparition permit into the magical sector." Anyway, the taxi drive afforded views of the city where the Metro did not.

He ignored the annoyed huff from the other side of the backseat, as well as the muttered, "Whatever."

The modern buildings, wide streets, public gardens, and open spaces of Gezira were left behind after they'd crossed the wide green-grey, greasy Nile. Now, the scenery was more haphazard: narrow lanes, crowded tenements and hundreds of ancient mosques hinted at a country with a varied and rich history.

Charlie felt a slight magical tingle at the edge of his awareness, and he frowned as he leant forward to investigate where the anomaly of magic in a Muggle taxi was coming from. He chuckled when he pulled an old edition of the _Eye of Horus_ from the pocket on the back of the driver's seat. When a Muggle looked at the Egyptian version of the _Daily Prophet_, they invariably saw much the same thing as a Muggle in Britain did when they tried to read the wizarding newspaper: advertising pamphlets or a similar type of junk mail.

Charlie skipped past the front page article—_Aurors chase down rogue magical carpet users_. In countries where magical carpets had been widely popular, there was a lot of resistance to the Statute's ruling on banning them. On the page opposite a very amusing cartoon strip were the wedding announcements… a garish page of twinkling gold and silver text that made his head hurt. The largest of all announced the marriage of Hassan El-Fayed to Lilith Zabini. Charlie turned the page and made a mental note to take bets at the reservation on how long _this_ husband would last; he'd lost the last bet, and he had Galleons to make up for.

He stopped flicking through the pages when he reached the financial section because a photograph caught his eye: Three goblins and Bill stood next to a large mountain of gold, artifacts and papyrus scrolls. _Gringotts finds Imhotep's tomb_, announced the caption. Charlie smiled broadly, now looking forward to seeing Bill even more. Charlie had always liked to call him the wizarding world's version of Indiana Jones. And now, Bill had helped to find the elusive tomb of one of the earliest known wizards in the recorded history of magic—a wizard who'd lived one and half millennia before the Founders.

Charlie remembered, once, when their father had taken them to the Muggle cinema to see one of the Indiana Jones movies—how Bill's eyes had been lit like a blue flame for weeks; how he'd disappeared into his room with Egyptology books for hours on end; how he been in trouble with Professor McGonagall for Transfiguring his school hat into an Indy hat, which he'd worn at a rakish angle; how he'd muttered about Hogwarts' limited curriculum because they taught only Ancient Runes and not cuneiform or hieroglyphs.

Finally, Charlie scanned the sports page—with three-week-old Quidditch results—and then refolded the newspaper and stuffed it back into the seat pocket.

He turned back to watching the scenery bleed by as he contemplated all the clues he now held to the frustrating mystery of the dragon killing—a handful of puzzle pieces that did not have one common edge to bind them.

Before they'd left Bucharest, there'd been a flurry of Floo calls. First, Tonks had Floo'd with news about the blue grass that she had collected at the dragon killing site. She'd said that, according to the Romanian Herbologist on duty, the grass itself was native to Ethiopia. Although, in this modern day and age, seeds for all types of grasses were readily available from any Herbologist and could be grown anywhere with the appropriate greenhouse charms in place. That had not been much help to further the investigation because although the Ministries kept import records, none of the Herbologists noted who bought which products from them, unless they were classified by a Ministry as controlled. A simple savannah grass was hardly considered a controlled species.

Of greater interest was that the grass had been soaked in a powerful sedative potion. The potion had likely been carefully selected because preliminary laboratory tests had indicated that it wouldn't have taken much of it to sedate a dragon of the Father's size.

Charlie shuddered at the realisation that the Father had been alive when his head had been sliced open. Answering the mystery of the origin of the blue grass had only triggered more questions that demanded to be answered. The most pertinent of these was why the killers had required the dragon to be alive? Why had they not AK'd the dragon? Why the elaborate measures with potion-imbued grass?

Tonks had said that the Potions Department at the Romanian Ministry was doing further tests on the potion, so that she could investigate if any of the individual components of it could be traced to a supplier and a buyer. Unfortunately, the backlog in the lab meant that the results would take over two weeks to process.

She'd grimaced. "Sorry, mate. My hands are tied. I can't go to the British Potions Department for a quicker turnaround because the Romanians will get territorial about the case."

"Can you get me a sample of the grass, then?" Charlie had asked after gnawing at his thumbnail for a moment. He'd given her _that_ look, the one McGonagall would have dreaded to see on his face when he'd been at school.

Tonks had caught on straightaway, and she'd smirked as she'd handed him a sealed envelope through the Floo connection.

Charlie had then contacted somebody who thrived on a good challenge... Hermione Granger (with a Silencing Charm around the Floo while Ron had still been sleeping, of course).

An affectionate smile came to Charlie's face as he thought about his brother's ex-girlfriend. Ron and Hermione had broken up halfway through the war, and the ensuing bitterness between them had almost divided the Order, with Molly practically calling for Hermione's head. Charlie reflected that it couldn't have been very easy for Harry during that time, fighting his lifelong nemesis in the strained atmosphere between his two best friends.

She had seemed a lot less stressed this morning than when he'd seen her last, just after the war. He remembered his father mentioning that she was an absolute workaholic, a fact that was a little at odds with the serene woman sitting comfortably in a cosy armchair, her knees drawn up to her chin, her hands wrapped around a mug of steaming Earl Grey.

By the end of their brief conversation, Charlie had been very glad to have Floo'd Hermione for her perspective because (as always) she'd been incredibly insightful and helpful. She worked for the Ministry of Magic in the Magical Patents Office, testing all new potions that were submitted for patenting. She'd taken the little envelope and said that she would be more than willing to test it for its individual components. She'd seemed very interested in a sedative potion that could topple a dragon in such a short period of time.

"That sort of Dark Potion has been lost to libraries that aren't _supposed_ to exist anymore, you know," she'd said. "I don't know of any published potion that would be strong enough…"

_An old, pure-blood family with an extensive Dark library, then,_ he'd thought. _Or somebody with access to a library like that._

In terms of research about dragons, Hermione had been less knowledgeable, but she'd been full of praise for the Wizarding Library at Alexandria.

"Oh, Charlie," she'd said with a light in her eyes and nostalgia in her voice, "you have to see the library to believe it. I was there last year with Se-Snape, for research on one of his patents, and I almost didn't want to come home, I swear."

Hermione had also mentioned that one of her friends from Hogwarts, Luna, worked at the library, and that she would probably be more than willing to help him find whatever he needed. He'd chuckled a little at her added, "If you're patient," because Hermione had to be one of the most impatient people that Charlie knew.

Closer to Heliopolis, the roads widened to broad avenues, and the buildings became more modern and luxurious. The quaint wizarding suburb of Cairo had been encircled by the city of luxury and leisure in 1905 when Baron Empain had raised his city on a seemingly empty tract of desert. Charlie smiled as the taxi screeched to a stop near the Qasr Al Baron, the ostentatious concrete monstrosity the Baron had commissioned back then. Ironically, the entrance to wizarding Cairo was just across the road from the large palace.

Charlie haggled loudly with the taxi driver while Ron stood on the pavement, looking sullen and impatient. Bill had taught him several very useful phrases in Arabic, and he put them to good use for a couple of minutes. Finally, he threw his hands into the air dramatically and rolled his eyes, then handed the driver a handful of Egyptian Pounds, along with a decent tip. "Ma'as salaama!" he called cheerfully. The taxi pulled back into the road with a squeal of tyres, leaving a dusty haze in its wake.

Bill and Fleur lived in Gringotts' company housing on a small lane off the main Al-Sihr Alley. The entrance to Al-Sihr was flanked by two majestic sphinx, but they let the two brothers pass with barely a flicker of their whiskers. Charlie knew, however, that they were brilliant security guards for the wizarding quarter, as dangerous as they were beautiful.

Ron seemed to liven up as they wound their way through the afternoon crowd. He glanced this way and that, his head bobbing on his long neck, like he was looking for something he'd lost. Charlie shook his head as it occurred to him that Ron might be searching for the equivalent of the Leaky Cauldron.

Fleur opened the door, shimmering like silver in the wintry sunshine. "Charlie! Ron!" she exclaimed, giving each brother a warm hug. Charlie blinked once or twice before he grinned back at her. Fleur could put the Veela charm on a little thick sometimes, but he'd been around her enough to just about be immune.

"Bill said 'e would be 'ome early today," she said, ushering them into the entrance hall. "Come, come, I will show you your rooms in ze meanwhile." She turned to face Ron, who still looked a little dazed. "And zen, you and I must talk about ze rules while you are staying 'ere, oui?"

It was all Charlie could do to hide his smirk as he climbed the stairs.

Later that evening, after dinner, Bill and Charlie sat in the living room, drinking mead and taking long drags from a hookah. Ron had slipped out, proclaiming an interest in Al-Sihr's nightlife, and Fleur sat curled up in an armchair next to the fire, marking 'Eengleesh' assignments.

Smoke curled around their coppery heads and slithered lazily up the surface of the Shield Charm that Fleur had Conjured between herself and them. Charlie was relaxed and content, his eyes narrowed slightly against the haze of smoke.

"You've got new tattoos," Charlie noted as Bill lifted his glass to his lips and his shirtsleeve shifted slightly.

Bill chuckled and pulled up his sleeve to his elbow. "Mmm. On both wrists," he said, showing Charlie the intricate, interwoven design of runes, hieroglyphs and fluid lines.

"You'd better hope Mum doesn't see those," Charlie noted darkly. He hid his own tattoos with meticulous care when he visited the Burrow; he knew better than to invite the wrath of Molly Weasley.

"They're for work," Bill said dryly, and he twisted his wrist so that something vaguely metallic in the ink work caught the firelight. "Built-in Shield Charms... very useful when you're struggling to do other work with both wands."

"Show-off," Charlie teased. Only Curse-Breakers, Charms Masters, and maybe some Aurors could wield two wands at once. "But I reckon something like that might be useful for the keepers." _A flame-retardant spell, perhaps,_ he mused.

Bill nodded as he pulled his sleeve down again. "I'll give you the name of the magi-artist who does them."

They each relaxed, long legs stretched out in front of them, comfortable silence between them warm as a familiar blanket as they sipped and smoked from their pipes.

"I see what you mean about Ron," Bill said finally.

Charlie took a long drag on the pipe, and the water bubbled madly in the bottom of the hookah. "Hmm." He thought that Fleur had probably laid some pretty strict rules down because Ron had been sulky and quiet through dinner.

"But I can probably find him a job with Aziz; maybe that'll help," Bill said.

Charlie raised his eyebrows and gave Bill a bemused look. "Playing tour guide to the rich wizarding tourists... you think that's wise?" he asked.

Bill shrugged. "Tips are a good incentive," he pointed out.

Although it irked a little that he hadn't been able to help Ron in Bucharest, Charlie felt relieved that Bill had stepped in. When they'd been little, Bill had solved all the impossible problems, like helping Charlie to remember where all the staircases at Hogwarts went, or how to Levitate a feather without incinerating it, or finding the best place in the garden to hide when Mum was on the warpath, or miraculously coming up with enough money for the latest Cleansweep when he'd made Seeker on the Gryffindor Team.

Charlie smiled at his brother. "Thanks, mate," he said. "You're my hero." He yawned and put his pipe away. The stress of the last few days seemed to have melted away in Bill's company, leaving fatigue in its place.

Bill snorted and leaned forward to put his own pipe back into its slot. "Go on, then. Bugger off to bed." His eyes turned to his wife, and they shared a besotted look that had Charlie's cheeks burning.

Charlie put his glass in the kitchen, and before he moved to climb the stairs, he grinned at Bill and mouthed, "Silencing Charm."

He had to duck under the Stunner that Bill sent his way, and he chuckled all the way to his room.

* * *

Charlie left Cairo after breakfast. Fleur had made bacon and eggs for breakfast, and when Charlie had left, Ron had been busy washing the dishes (under duress, but still, he was _washing dishes_). Charlie took the Floo Network to Alexandria from Al-Sihr's transportation station, and he stepped out into Alexandria's magical district, Pharos. Pharos was similar to Al-Sihr in Cairo: the trading centre was obviously magical, but it was completely unlike Diagon Alley in most respects. Where the cobbled streets and quaint shops in London held an 'Old World' charm, the dusty alley in Alexandria was slightly overwhelming. Stalls in a vibrant rainbow of silk lined the narrow main street, and exotic smells enticed the shoppers to stop here, taste there. The crowd flowed past and around him like a river.

Charlie stopped outside a magical creatures shop for a moment, unable to resist the Magizoologist's call. He gazed, enthralled, at the jewel-bright Fwoopers in gilded cages, which sang silently behind ironclad Silencing Charms. A sphinx gazed unblinkingly at the crowds, a magnificent scarlet and gold phoenix trilled musically at passers-by, and shiny scarab beetles clicked irritably in their boxes. Charlie loved the variety of magical creatures that could be seen in different countries across the globe. Sometimes he wished he could have afforded to take a gap-year before moving onto his apprenticeship.

As he moved onwards up the street, Charlie could barely hear himself thinking above the din: merchants haggled loudly over the price of a cauldron or a particularly fine bolt of robe material, and the murmuring rise and fall of voices from crowds of shoppers and commuters came randomly from all directions.

He picked up a copy of the _Eye of Horus_ from a stall outside the magical bookshop, and he bought a cup of strong, bitter, black coffee from the vendor next to that. He stood out of the way of the morning rush, scanning through the headlines—_Sudan hopes to host next Magical Olympics_ and _El-Fayed loses take-over bid for Gringotts Egypt_—before turning the paper over to catch up with the latest Quidditch scores.

After the crowd had thinned, he took a slow walk down Pharos Alley, and then he turned into a quieter side street, which wound through a number of closely-spaced flats. Children played in the shade within protective Intruder Charms, little toffee-skinned urchins who gazed up curiously at the foreigner with the flaming-red hair and rugged looks. He waved cheerfully and grinned at them, and then he winked at a small crowd of teenaged girls who giggled furiously and whispered to each other behind their hands.

He reached the gates of the Wizarding Library and took a breath of awe, his eyes widening at the magnificent building that held a large portion of the wizarding world's historical intellectual wealth. Beyond the intricately crafted wrought iron gates, a long stone pathway led the eye through landscaped gardens and up a broad flight of stairs to the elegantly colonnaded portico. The polished white stone almost put Gringotts of London to shame, and the various small turrets and levels boasted rounded, gilded domes that glittered brightly in the afternoon sunlight.

Charlie meandered towards the entrance of the library and every now and then he tilted his head back to enjoy the glow of warmth on his face and the scents of the magically enhanced gardens. He smiled at the strange juxtaposition of this corner of this small paradise with the busy, noisy world beyond the gates.

He stepped through the tall entrance and raised his eyebrows as he felt the telltale frisson of magical charms wash against his skin, tickling lightly. He turned back to gaze back towards the garden and was impressed. Not even a shimmer of warning that the charms were in place. _Must have been a highly talented Charms Master,_ he thought. He could tell that there was a sound-dampening charm in place, as well as a climate control charm, and he chuckled softly as he realized there was a dust removal charm in place also; his leather jacket and heavy dragon hide boots were cleaner than they'd been since… well, since he'd bought them.

Here, out of the sunlight and in the pool of cool shadows, it was peaceful, all the hubbub of the outside world shut away. Charlie could already smell the scent of old parchment, and he could see why this was one of Hermione's favourite places in the world.

Across the entrance hall, a young witch was talking with an elderly looking, scholarly man, and Charlie patiently moved to the display table against the side of the room, waiting to ask for directions to the Magical Creatures (or dragons) section of the Library.

He picked up a pamphlet idly and read the first page, giving a quiet, "Huh." _You learn something new everyday,_ he thought. He'd never known that this library had originally been part of a larger library, shared with Muggles: _  
_

"_Bibliotheca Alexandrina: The Royal Library of Alexandria - A Wizarding Perspective_

_"In ancient times when Pharaohs ruled the land of Egypt, great and powerful wizards counselled the leaders of Egypt and were indispensable in their courts._

_"The Royal Library of Alexandria was founded in the fourth century BC by Ptolemy I, Alexander the Great's Greek successor. He built what would become the first part of the library complex, the temple of the Muses: the Musaion. It was enlarged to its legendary state of unsurpassed beauty by his son, Ptolemy II._

_"The library was not only a major centre for research and learning, but also a repository for the largest collection of scrolls, books and documents, both Muggle and wizarding. The library is rumoured to have held almost three quarters of a million manuscripts; knowledge accumulated by ancient philosophers, scientists, alchemists, historians and poets. The works of Plato, Aristotle, Thucydidies, Sophocles, Euripedes, Hippocrates and Euclid were housed in this phenomenal library. The head librarians included the mathematician Archimedes and the astronomer Aristarchus._

_"In 48 BC, Caesar arrived in Alexandria to occupy the city and court Cleopatra. It was during a battle with Ptolemy XII that Caesar was forced to burn his own ships, setting fire to the docks and threatening the Library._

_"Sensing a shift of power to the Romans, the wizarding authorities moved the wizarding tome and scroll collection from the Royal Library of Alexandria to the Wizarding Library of Alexandria (a replica of the original Muggle version), situated in Alexandria's wizarding community. They closed and warded the wizarding community to all but those magical, and they distanced themselves from Muggle involvement at this time. Incidentally, the Egyptians were the first wizarding community to do so, over a millennium before the International Code of Wizarding Secrecy was passed in 1692._

_"The city of Alexandria passed formally under Roman jurisdiction in 80 BC. The decision to distance themselves by the wizarding authorities had been fortuitous, for it was during this time that Alexandria acquired importance as a centre of Christian theology and church government, even though its original historical importance had been derived from pagan learning._

_"From 270 to 275 AD, during the taking of the city by the Emperor Aurelian, Muggle records indicate that the contents of the Muggle library were essentially lost, and that only the smaller library located at the Serapeum survived._

_"In the late fourth century, persecution of pagans by Christians reached new levels of intensity. In 391 AD, Emperor Theodosius I ordered the destruction of all pagan temples, and Patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria complied with his request. Temples and statues were destroyed throughout the Roman Empire. Pagan rituals became forbidden under punishment of death—"_

"Uh, hmm."

Charlie glanced up when the witch at the desk cleared her throat softly, as though to catch his attention. He stuffed the pamphlet into his jacket pocket and walked towards her, smiling his most charming smile. "Morning, ma'am," he greeted cheerfully, smiling. "I'm looking for the magical creatures section, please."

She gave him directions after he'd signed the visitor's book, and she mentioned that the librarian there would be able to assist him with any searches he wanted to make. After he flashed a gallant grin at her and dropped a couple of Galleons into the donation box, Charlie set off up two flights of stairs, taking them three steps at a time. He felt lighter than he had in weeks. Perhaps it was mean-spirited of him to be glad that he'd left Ron with Bill and Fleur, but right now he had other things than Ron to be concerned about. The most important of those was discovering why the Romanian dragon had been killed, because in the wizarding world an obscure motive was never good news.

The magical creatures section was enormous, with bookshelves and scroll filing systems that reached up to the soaring roof. His mouth fell to the floor as he realised how pitiful his prized collection was in comparison to this wealth of knowledge that had been preserved and treasured by generations of witches and wizards.

He had no idea where to start looking, so he wandered up the first aisle in search of the section librarian. Somehow, calling out in the sacred quiet seemed sacrilegious, and he took the time to tilt his head sideways, examining the titles along time-cracked leather spines. He soon discovered that tracing his fingertips along the spines was not an option. A protective charm seemed to be in place on all the bookshelves, buffering his fingertip away from physical contact with the leather.

He turned the corner to the second aisle and saw… an angel? The low afternoon sunshine that streamed in through a two-story high window backlit somebody floating at head height, their silvery hair gleaming and creating a halo effect. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he realised that it was a witch standing on a levitating platform, shelving several scrolls of age-yellowed parchment.

_Clever,_ he thought. _Much safer than the ladders that Madam Pince had implemented at Hogwarts. _But those wouldn't be at all effective in a library like this, where the shelves were at least four times taller than those at Hogwarts.

What looked like a brightly coloured peacock feather, a pair of chopsticks, a wand, and a pencil were all securing her hair, and they stuck out in odd directions from her head. She wore silvery-blue robes with a metallic sheen that shimmered in the bright sunlight, sending floating blotches of light reflecting across the surfaces around her like a Muggle disco ball.

She held out an index finger in his direction, obviously gesturing that she'd be with him in a moment, as she carefully filed the last ancient scroll. The platform lowered slowly and she turned, gazing at him frankly with large grey eyes. Glittering, swaying wire pyramids hung from her ears and she wore a silver necklace with a plethora of charms dangling from it: an owl, a crystal ball, broom, a witch's hat, something that looked like a radish—

He shook himself, realising he'd been staring at her unusual charm necklace for longer than was polite. He gave her a contrite smile and cleared his throat. "Good afternoon," he said, watching as she stepped off the platform, still gazing at him with that frank look that made him feel rather uncomfortably scrutinised.

"Hello, there." Her voice was light and musical, like gossamer notes of silver, soft and mysterious, like a quicksilver moon. He opened his mouth to introduce himself and to to ask for the references he sought, but she started speaking before he could manage to make his tongue work.

"Oh, let me guess. You're a Weasley. You'd have to be with all that red hair and freckles… only you're far better looking than the other Weasleys I've met already," she said, switching to a brisk, matter-of-fact tone halfway through. "And you wear your hair short. I like that."

Charlie was slightly taken aback by her comment. And he was unaccountably flattered, too, which made him feel a little flustered. This woman was very odd, but it wasn't every day that a woman told him he was handsome.

He ran a hand through his hair, now overly aware that it was Charmed very short on the back and sides. "I… er… yeah. Charlie Weasley," he offered eventually.

He groaned inwardly. _Oh, well done, Charlie. Very smooth._

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Charlie Weasley," she said, stepping forward with her hand extended. "I'm Luna Lovegood."

* * *

**Author's Notes:**  
Thank you to Bill Weasley for gracing the chapter art!  
Al-Sihr means witchcraft.  
All of the other places mentioned are real places in Cairo.  
To the Muggle world, Imhotep was an engineer, architect and physician who served under the Third Dynasty king, Djoser, as chancellor to the pharaoh and high priest of the sun god Ra at Heliopolis. All wizards and witches know that he was also a powerful wizard and the originator of the powerful curses placed on Egyptian tombs.  
Thank you to Gelsey for proof-reading and to Anijade for her input on this chapter.


	6. Luna Lovegood, Librarian

Luna introduced herself to Charlie, and then she extended her silvery slim hand in greeting, an armful of bracelets shimmering and tinkling like a river of metal.

_Luna Lovegood. Hermione's friend,_ he thought. He couldn't recall ever having met her; he was sure he'd have remembered Luna.

Charlie shook Luna's hand politely and then opened his mouth to say something charming, something clever, but he found that he'd lost every shred of his gregarious charm under her wide-eyed gaze.

"I'm sure I would have met you at your brother's wedding, if I'd have gone to it," Luna said contemplatively—saving him from the embarrassment of saying something utterly stupid, "but I went on an urgent trip to South Africa with my father. I mean, who would pass up the opportunity to see a Tokoloshe?" She frowned slightly. "Although, we didn't get to see him because he was invisible at the time… silly magical pebble."

_Tokoloshe?_ Charlie opened his mouth to ask what the hell that was, but Luna had already started speaking again in that strange, matter-of-fact manner. Coupled with her dreamy tone, it was an odd juxtaposition that made him feel a little off-kilter… unsure of what she'd say next to throw him off his guard.

"Anyway, I don't think anybody missed me there anyway… I think they only invited me because I was at the Ministry for the Hall of Prophecies battle with Harry and everybody. But it was nice of them to ask," she said, beaming and nodding to herself. "I never had that many friends at Hogwarts, but when Neville, Ginny and I joined the Trio, I felt like we were the Secret Six," she said, her tone far-away now, as though she were visiting memories in a distant part of her mind. "Anyway. It was nice to be included." She stopped speaking and resumed her frank, unblinking appraisal of him.

Charlie vaguely recalled Ron's tales of that evening, when he'd been attacked by the brains in the Department of Mysteries. He couldn't remember Ron ever mentioning Luna, though. A long, blonde strand of hair had escaped from her haphazard hair style, and she lifted a hand to wind it back around one of the chopsticks. For some odd reason, his fingers itched to pull all of the silly things from her hair. Charlie realized that he'd been staring back, and he searched frantically for something to say, something to distract him from the thought that the silence was oddly comfortable for two complete strangers.

"So… you know Hermione, then?" he asked and immediately wanted to slap his hand against his forehead for such an obvious question. Of course she knew Hermione! Hermione had told him that much, and Luna had just been speaking about the Golden Trio.

Luna smiled broadly, not giving any indication that she thought his question silly in any way. "Yes. She and I have become good friends over the last few years. She comes to Alexandria often for research. You're not allowed to remove the books and scrolls, by the way." She shook her head to compound the seriousness of the statement, and the wire pyramids at her ears swayed back and forth vigorously.

Charlie nodded, still unable to give voice to an intelligent thought.

A slight frown crossed her forehead for a fleeting moment and then Luna said serenely, "Sometimes I wonder if we became friends because I'm a librarian here. Hermione always did like her books. She didn't have much time for me when we were at school… she always thought that I was making things up," she said, shaking her head, almost in suspended disbelief. "She was so surprised when I showed her the books about the Crumple-Horned Snorkack that I discovered here."

_What?_ Charlie thought. He had shelves full of magical creatures books, including Newt Scamander's Comprehensive Encyclopaedia of Magical Creatures in the Wizarding World. He'd never heard of a creature like _that_ before.

Luna smiled dreamily. "That's why I like working here so much. There are so many hidden secrets." The slight frown of contemplation creased her forehead again. "Although, I'm still looking for a scroll that proves the Wrackspurts exist. I wish I could have found it before Harry died—he never did believe that they existed," she said, her tone a little sad and wistful now. "I liked Harry. He was my first real friend, you know. I'm sorry he died."

Charlie's brain was still stuck on the Wrackspurts. He felt like he'd stepped through into some parallel universe, where logic was traded in bucket-loads for whimsy and wild imaginings.

She sighed a little and shook her head, making a _tsk_ sound before she pressed her lips together briefly. "I told Headmistress McGonagall that the Ministry was plotting to kill Harry as well—she didn't believe me." Luna paused and schooled her face into a very good approximation of McGonagall's tightly-pursed mouth when she was expressing absolute disapproval.

Charlie frowned. Harry had been killed because of the backlash of magical energy between his scar and the _Avada Kedavra _he'd cast on Voldemort.

"Oh, you don't have to believe me either if you don't want to, Charlie," she said, smiling indulgently at him. "Nobody ever does; I'm used to it."

"I… er—" He'd started to deny that he didn't believe her, but she was talking again already.

"Oh, it's always so nice to see somebody from England here in Alexandria," she said, beaming at him. "How is Ronald?" she asked. "The last time I saw him, he was being a bit of an idiot. He was upset that Hermione dumped him, you know. But it was best for her—she's much happier now…" Luna trailed off and left her sentence oddly unfinished, like she'd just realized she was speaking out loud.

Charlie nodded. "He's with Bill in Cairo." _Wow, finally, a full sentence, mate. _

"Oh, yes. His wife's a Veela descendent, isn't she?" Luna tapped her lip contemplatively. "I wonder what kind of children they'll have… a half-werewolf and a quarter-Veela… hmm, I'll have to do some research on that one." She pulled the peacock feather quill from her hair—causing a section of it cascade down to her waist—and scribbled a note on a piece of parchment that popped out of thin air.

Charlie watched, bemused. He'd never met anybody quite like Luna before. She was brutally honest and forthcoming, confusing, beautiful, scatter-brained and completely quirky, all in turns.

"So, what are you doing in Alexandria, Charlie Weasley?" she asked in a direct manner, gazing at him expectantly with bright, clear eyes.

Charlie found himself feeling distinctly wrong-footed again at her abrupt turn towards business after her long monologue about, well, the wizarding world and his Crup.

Trying to collect himself, he was certain that his face was probably as red as his hair, he said, "Er… yes, well, I have a bit of a mystery on my hands, and Hermione suggested that this would be the best place to look for the answer." _You dolt, didn't you say that already?_ Charlie could sincerely not remember what he had and had not said thus far. Luna was far too… distracting. He ploughed on with his explanation. "See, a dragon was killed at the reservation recently, and I can remember reading something significant about a dragon's head once, but the details are all very… fuzzy. Where would the best place be for me to start looking here?"

Charlie felt a little sheepish for his less than lucid babbling (Merlin, he was generally the most logical bloke he knew), but from his first impression of her, he _did_ have the notion that either Luna wouldn't notice, or that she wouldn't care. Either option meant that he wouldn't be teased for it. Looking down at Luna, Charlie was pleased to see that he was right; she appeared to be deep in thought as she considered his request.

"Well, you are in the right section of the library, so that helps." She gestured around at the soaring shelves. "Although there are so many magical creatures, it'd take you days and days without my help," she said succinctly. "But, you'll probably be more comfortable in the reading room if you don't know exactly what you're looking for. Please follow me."

Turning quickly, Luna's robes swirled gracefully around her legs. For a woman of average height, she moved very quickly, and Charlie was surprised that he had to make an effort to keep up with her. Luna twisted and turned between the stacks, following a mental map that had to be all her own before they stopped in front of a door. Luna opened the door to reveal a bookshelf-lined reading room with a large desk and a comfortable looking desk chair.

With a wave of the wand that she pulled out of her hair – causing it to fall down her back in untidy waves again – she muttered an incantation that he only understood one word of: "_Praebeo Draco Liber Libri Corpus Corporis_."

Immediately, six shelves shimmered brightly for a moment and then shifted forward slightly in comparison to the rest of the shelves lining the room. "You will find the most comprehensive books on dragon physiology on these shelves. It's probably the best place to start if you remember reading about a dragon's head. While you are looking around, I will run an index enquiry charm for 'dragon head'. Don't worry… I will be certain to keep you informed of my progress."

Then, as quickly as she had come on, efficient Luna vanished, and the misty-eyed, quirky woman who talked about wild and wonderful schemes and things people didn't believe in was back. She gave him a dewy smile. "I hope that helps, Charlie. I will see you later."

* * *

Charlie yawned widely as he stretched his arms above his head, wincing when he heard his joints click audibly in the quiet room. He leant forward over a thick tome and propped his cheek on his palm, sighing gustily as he resumed his (still fruitless) research. The towering pile of books on the desk had yielded nothing remarkably different from his NEWT Care of Magical Creatures text on dragon physiology.

The text was slightly blurred as he read the same summaries, studied the same skeletal diagrams for what felt like the tenth time that day: "Dragons are homoeothermic – warm-blooded creatures, internally controlling their body temperature." _No shit, Sherlock,_ Charlie thought sarcastically. _That's why they can live in all climates._

"Dragons have hollow bones to enable flight. All dragons are covered with armour-like scales that have a translucent, horny surface. This gives the dragons the iridescent hue to their bodies. The skull often has horns and sharp teeth—" _Bloody obvious! Oh, bollocks to this._ Charlie slammed the book closed, scowling.

He leant back in his chair, arms folded across his chest, wondering if he hadn't been imagining that there was something important about the dragon killing… the head of a dragon. Maybe it had been in one of those… Muggle science fiction books that his father used to leave lying around the house.

He glanced up at the high, mullioned window and frowned. The golden afternoon light had dimmed to faded, silvery lavender and grey shadows had started to shift across the room. He sighed; he'd hoped to have finished his research by now. He'd have to either find a hotel here in Alexandria or Floo back to Bill and Fleur's place in Cairo. _Although_, he thought wearily, _I am so not in the mood for Ron._

The door opened and Luna drifted in, empty-handed as well, Charlie noted, groaning inwardly. "Did you find anything, Charlie?" she asked.

He shook his head. "No, not what I was looking for."

She glanced at the bookshelves that she'd filled for him earlier. "Well, you're only done with one out of six… there might be hope yet," she said, beaming. The washed-out light blended in with her silvery hair, and if he squinted through his tired eyes, he could almost imagine that she was part air, part magic… a mystical, beautiful creature, utterly unfathomable.

"I… er… don't think the rest'll be much help," he said, gesturing to the tower of books on the desk. "These ones all had a variation of exactly the same information." He realised it was time that somebody wrote a comprehensive dragon text – one that told the reader more than 'a dragon has teeth and breathes fire.'

Luna rolled her large, grey eyes. "They do that sometimes. Anyway… the index enquiry charm is still running on my catalogue," she said, gesturing in what Charlie presumed was the direction of her office, so that the arm of her robe fluttered through the air gently. "It should be finished by tomorrow morning," she said, beaming again.

Charlie nodded and rubbed his eyes tiredly. "Thanks, Luna," he said, stifling another yawn. "I'm buggered anyway, I think."

"Are you going to stay with your family tonight?" she asked. Charlie was certain he heard a slightly longing, perhaps wistful note in her voice.

Charlie shrugged. "I dunno," he said, standing and placing the books back onto the first bookshelf. "I'm actually a little tired to deal with all those people, to be honest… I reckon a hotel here in Alexandria will be a lot more peaceful."

And that was just Charlie – he was a friendly guy, but at heart, he preferred the quiet solitude that the outdoors offered to the hustle and bustle of the city. Growing up in the Weasley house had always been a bit of a challenge for him, and he'd often escaped into the overgrown garden for the entire day during the holiday, appearing as the sun set for one of Molly's home-cooked meals.

Luna pulled a face. "Oh, the hotels here are just horrid, and they over-charge… tourists, you know." She gave him a contemplative look. "Well, if you like, I have a spare bedroom. If Hermione trusts you, then I think I can." She laughed a silvery, charming laugh that warmed the room somehow. "Anyway, I know your mother… you'll be bombarded with Howlers if you don't behave."

Charlie rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Mum's _lovely_, isn't she?"

A slight shadow flittered in her eyes for a moment. "Oh, yes, she is. My mum died when I was younger."

_Oops._ "Oh… er… I'm sorry?" Charlie felt a little guilty… being sardonic about his mother when Luna had lost hers so young.

"Oh, it's okay. The Veil is just a divide in time, isn't it?" she said, lifting a shoulder. "I'll see her soon enough… when it's my time." Luna pulled a large, silver pocket watch from her cleavage and opened it. "Well, it's almost time to close, Charlie. What's your verdict then?"

Charlie hesitated for a moment, although he knew what he wanted his answer to be. He was too intrigued by Luna not to accept. And although some might say her eyes were too big, or that her mouth was a little wide or perhaps that her hair was scraggly, to Charlie, Luna was very appealing.

He made his decision, convincing himself that she was a friend of the family… of sorts. "Ah… er… yeah, thanks, Luna," he said, picking up his bag and slinging it across his chest. "That's really nice of you."

"Oh, no problems, Charlie," she said, wrapping her hand around his arm companionably. "I like having people to stay. It makes me feel less lonely."

Charlie had no answer for that statement and merely let Luna lead the way out of the Library and into the mild Alexandria evening.

* * *

A/N: According to www(dot)vanhunks(dot)com, a Tokoloshe is: a domestic spirit found in the households of witches and wizards in southern Africa. It is a brown, hairy dwarf, which is usually naked, but sometimes wears a cloak. The Tokoloshe has a single buttock. The penis of the Tokoloshe is so long that it has to be slung over his shoulder. Thus sexually well-endowed, the duties of the Tokoloshe include making love to its witch mistress. In return, it is rewarded with milk and food. The witch keeps the Tokoloshe docile by cutting the fringe of hair that hangs over its eyes. Witches sometimes inherit these demon lovers from their mothers. The Tokoloshe is usually invisible to adults, but if you do see one, you should on no account annoy it by speaking to it, or pointing at it. The Tokoloshe achieves invisibility by means of a magic pebble, which it keeps in its mouth. The creature is mischievous, but only malevolent when controlled by an evil sorcerer.

(Ahem, brownie points to anybody who writes Tokoloshe crack!fic for me).


	7. Legend

Walking through the busy streets of Alexandria with Luna was quite a challenge for big, tall Charlie. She zigged and zagged through the crowd in a flitting, random manner. It amazed him that she could move so fast without upsetting anyone. He had to shuffle sideways through the milling shoppers and the haze of dust with his most apologetic and sheepish smile in place, offering profuse apologies for trampled toes and jostled shopping bags. Charlie almost knocked Luna over when she stopped unexpectedly and turned to him with a smile.

"Are you hungry? Perhaps we get something for dinner from a vendor while we are down here. There's a wonderful variety." Perhaps to emphasize her point, Luna looked at the nearest stall and gestured towards the camel steaks that were brining in a large dish. "What about camel? It's a bit gamey for me but quite the experience for a novice."

At the mention of food, Charlie realised that he was starving. The last time he'd eaten had been at breakfast at Bill and Fleur's place. He'd been so intent on working his way through the mountains of dragon physiology books that he'd forgotten to get himself lunch. "Yeah, I am hungry, actually. That sounds like a great plan," he said, nodding.

He looked at the camel meat warily. He'd eaten some interesting food before and wasn't entirely a food novice, but the thought of eating camel was almost like trying to imagine what dragons would taste like; he'd ridden camels before, and they had such personality (even if they did honk a bit). Charlie gave her a sheepish shrug and went for the diplomatic route. "What would prefer to eat? I would hate to pick something that you aren't that fond of."

Luna nodded and looked thoughtful and relieved all at once. "Thank you, Charlie. I do think that you must be the one with manners in your family. Ron ate everything in sight and the twins..." She shook her head. "Let's find a vendor that sells something we will both enjoy."

They selected a sampling of Egyptian cuisine from several stalls as they made their way to Luna's flat: Kebab, tender lamb meat grilled on skewers; Mahshi, a spicy rice stuffed in a variety of vegetables and wrapped in vine leaves; Eish Baladi, a local Egyptian bread; a range of fig, date and nut fillings in wrapped in phyllo pasty for pudding. When they reached her flat, Charlie held the bags while Luna scratched in her bag for her keys. Finally, after a tinkling cacophony that sounded like a mini-landslide from her bag, she just pulled her wand from her hair and unlocked it that way. Charlie dropped his chin to hide his amused smile.

The colours and atmosphere of the Alexandria market seemed to bleed into Luna's home. Large, jewel-toned tasselled pillows decorated low seating areas. The exotic scent of incense unfurled lazily from incense holders. Strange mementos and knickknacks covered the surfaces of the coffee tables and bookshelves. A hookah was mounted on the wall like a piece of art. It was the type of organised chaos that reminded him of home—a more exotic version of the Burrow.

Where the influence of Egypt was immediately visible, Charlie saw that the rest of the world was represented against the far wall. Photographs, both Muggle and wizarding, were arranged closely together in myriad different frames. From the doorway, he could not see exactly what each was, but he did spot a picture of the famous (or infamous) DA crowd from Ron and Ginny's school days.

"Well, here we are," Luna said brightly as she took the bags from Charlie's arms. "How about you grab a shower? The bathroom is the second door on the right. I will get the food set up for dinner."

Charlie blinked in surprise, but he realised that he _was_ rather grimy on closer inspection; a fine layer of dust obscured most of the freckles on his lower arms, and it tasted like he'd swallowed the Sahara. Luna had, in her strangely tactful-yet-direct way, told him that he was dirty and should fix it before dinner. He dropped his bag to the floor next to the couch and, with a bemused smile, he wandered down the passage.

Luna's bathroom was rather normal, to Charlie's mild surprise. Light sparkled off a mirrored dream catcher, though, and he wondered if that was because she napped in the bath sometimes. He quickly stripped down and stepped into the shower. It felt good to wash the dust away, although the hot water flow was rather variable—something he'd often experienced when in North Africa. He made a mental note to tell Luna about the spell that Bill and Fleur used on their plumbing. After realising that his toiletries were in his bag—in his slightly dazed state, he'd left that in the living room—he discovered that Luna had a vast array of soaps, gels, lotions and shampoos on a shelf in the shower. He sniffed a few to make sure he wouldn't come out smelling too girly and selected the most neutral ones he could find.

Satisfied that he was clean again, he stepped out of the shower just as Luna was opening the bathroom door. Both of them froze, almost comically suspended in that moment, and then Luna threw the stunned, drawn-out moment off.

With no indication that she realised he was naked, she said serenely, "Charlie, dinner is ready when you are. The clean towels are in the cupboard under the basin."

Before Charlie could say a word, Luna was gone, and the door clicked closed behind her. It took a few moments for Charlie to recover his wits, and then he reached for a towel to dry himself off.

_Well, that was... well, I'm not really sure what that was._ He felt a little dazed, like the scene just moments ago had been a surreal dream and he was just waking from it. His skin was hot and not just from the shower! Growing up in the Weasley house and having attended Hogwarts, Charlie didn't have a huge issue with privacy in the bathroom. But it was a different matter when an almost stranger walked in on you, especially when you were fascinated with the woman in an oddly strange, dreamlike sort of way, as well. Luna wasn't the sort of woman Charlie usually went for—and she was much younger… she had to be about Ginny's age—but there was just something… something almost magical about her appeal. He scowled—perhaps she'd bewitched him with an attraction hex—and he picked up his wand and looked down its business end as he muttered, "_Finite Incantatum,_" and then he felt even more stupid when no magical haze seemed to lift.

His embarrassed flush hadn't entirely faded when he cast a Cleaning Charm on his clothing; he wasn't keen on facing Luna in just a towel, especially after that little incident. It would have to do, he supposed. Once he was dressed, Charlie looked in the mirror and checked if he needed to use a Shaving Charm, as well. The auburn shadow that darkened his jaw line confirmed that he did. After shaving, he Banished the pool of water he'd left on the bathroom tiles. He sighed slightly and shrugged, deciding that he'd procrastinated his exit from the bathroom for long enough.

Charlie hovered in the hallway for a moment, gazing up at the brightly painted mural of various imaginary creatures on the roof. After berating himself for being an utter coward, he stepped into the kitchen area, slightly flushed again.

"Thanks for waiting for me for dinner." _Good one, Chaz. Sound calm and pretend that nothing has happened._

Luna seemed unflustered as she filled two glasses with fruit juice, then slid his glass across the counter to him.

"It was no trouble, Charlie. I forgot to tell you to wear an _Impervious_ in the market. A good shower is the best thing to get the dust off here in Egypt if you don't. There's lots of dust here." She laughed, and the corners of his mouth turned up slightly at the pleasant tones of her chuckle. She gestured towards the kitchen table. "Have a seat while I dish up."

Charlie was relieved that Luna seemed to be ignoring the white elephant that was trumpeting loudly in the middle of the room. Or perhaps she just didn't see the elephant. He played idly with his glass, trying to pretend that he couldn't see it either. Luna placed his plate in front of him, and Charlie waited for her to sit as well before picking up his knife and fork.

She tittered softly, and as Charlie was about to ask about the source of her amusement, Luna said, "You really aren't anything like Ron, are you? By now he would have been rooting around in his plate like the food was going to up and run away."

Charlie smiled, and he looked only slightly embarrassed for his brother's part. "None of us are really sure where he got that habit. Mum did actually teach us manners growing up, but Ron's always had a thing about food. I think the one of the twins must have done something to him when he was little."

It kind of made sense, really. Growing up, Ron had probably been on the receiving end of the worst of the twins' pranks. Granted, they'd teased Percy mercilessly as well, Charlie recalled. He and Bill had been too big and too ready with a retaliatory punch or hex for them to bother much with their two eldest siblings.

"Thank you for your hospitality, Luna." He smiled at her over the edge of his slightly raised glass.

Luna gave him a beatific smile. "It's a pleasure, Charlie. It's kind of nice having someone here from home, actually. It makes England seem less far away. So, I am happy to have you here."

They both tucked into their dinners. For a while, each was lost in their private thoughts, but when his plate was almost empty, Charlie gestured towards the living room. "So, what are all the photographs of?" he asked, seizing upon a relatively neutral topic.

Luna glanced up and smiled; a genuine smile that was really gorgeous to see, like her thoughts had made her very happy. He didn't see all that many people smiling these days. Not while their world was being rebuilt, when there were so many worries that weighed heavily.

"Those are from my travels with my dad—he always took me with on his summer expeditions," she said, fingers sketching through the air expansively. The soft light reflected off five or six eclectic rings that sparkled on her fingers.

"So, where did you go to?" he asked, picking up a bright orange napkin to wipe his mouth with after putting his knife and fork together on his plate. "Ta, that was fantastic."

She beamed her welcome and then lifted a shoulder. "Oh, wherever he was interested in finding something," she said, rising from the table and floating over to the wall. Charlie pushed out his chair and took that as a sign to follow her.

"Oh, look, there's one from Hogwarts with the group," she said, pointing at a picture of the Trio, his sister, and Neville and Luna. "I miss the group," she said, sounding whimsically nostalgic for a moment before jumping to another topic. "Don't you like my Gryffindor hat in that picture? I was good at charming those... they roared. I have no idea why McGonagall banned musical hats the following match."

Charlie's eyebrows rose as he leant forward to examine the photograph. The monstrous hat almost hid her silvery hair and face it was so large. "Erm, very creative," he offered before glancing at a photograph of a much younger Luna and her father in a meadow. Her father had snow-white hair like candyfloss, and it stuck out from his head like a fuzzy halo. Charlie blinked. The man was wearing lavender robes and a strange pendant on a chain. Quirkiness was genetic, then? "And that one?" Aside from Mr. Lovegood's robes and a carpet of daisies, there was nothing else of interest in the photograph.

"You can't see them?" she asked, sounding a little surprised. "It's me and dad with the Thestrals," she told him. "Wow, you got through the war and you still can't see the Thestrals?" There was a measure of awe in her voice that made him feel very lucky.

"No, I was in charge of the dragon brigade, away from the skirmishes," he said. In the end he'd been the most experienced keeper, and he had trained the riders and kept the dragons happy. They'd been a big winning point in the war, and Charlie didn't feel too bad for having been off to the side.

"Awesome," she said. "I always wanted to learn, you know, but they never wanted to let me close." She pouted, and he had the strangest desire to touch her outthrust lower lip.

"Aw, that's easy to explain," he said with a chuckle. "Turns out they didn't like blondes. In their visual spectrum, the hair colour shows up as something that repelled them, we reckoned. It annoyed Draco to the ends of the earth that he had to Charm his hair colour." He smirked at that memory.

"Huh, that's very odd," she said, shaking her head.

Charlie thought that Luna's perception of the odd scale was a little off kilter and merely smiled.

"It doesn't take much to annoy Draco, though," she continued, her voice fading into the mists of the past again. She shook her head, silvery locks rippling. Standing so close to her now, he noticed that one strand had blue beads threaded onto it. "I annoyed Draco," she said a moment later, her tone matter of fact.

Charlie snorted with amusement. "I reckon I did, too," he said, rolling his eyes. He and his brothers had played the protective role to the hilt when he'd started to court Ginny. But Draco was very good to Ginny, and Charlie accepted their relationship, now. There had been a lot of grumbling and bickering to start with—the Weasleys and the Malfoys had never been entirely chummy.

Luna flapped a hand. "Anyway, as long as Ginny's happy." She smiled brightly. "Your sister is a very good friend. She was always very friendly, and she stopped the people from calling me Loony at school."

Charlie nodded vaguely and felt a little uncomfortable at the stray thought that had he been at Hogwarts during that time, he'd likely have been amongst those that had done so; he'd always been a big one for teasing and taking the piss. And although he did like the woman, she _was_ distinctly different. He hadn't always been mature enough—when he'd been friends with the Quidditch crowd—to appreciate people who weren't 'normal'.

She turned away from the pictures on the wall. "I'll go put the kettle on. Make yourself comfy and have a look around." She stopped mid-stride on the way to the kitchen and turned back, crouching at her overflowing bookshelf. She pushed a number of brightly-coloured candleholders aside and pulled out a large book. "I found this at a Muggle market stall the other day, and I haven't had a chance to look at it yet, but you might like it." She deposited the book into his hands and flittered off to the kitchen.

Charlie gazed after her for a moment, and then he glanced down at the heavy book. Here be Dragons, he read and snorted slightly to himself. Another fantasy book, most likely. He sat on the couch, pushing a beaded cushion to the side and flipped the book open, paging idly through the dragon lore and legends. There were a load of these books around, mostly written by Muggle fantasy writers and mostly highly inaccurate. It was printed in ornate text with several coloured plates of mystical and fantastical (and anatomically incorrect) renditions of dragons that had never existed.

He turned another page, almost ready to discard the book. His eyes opened wide at the drawing on the next page. A large dragon lay dead, with its head split open, and a man stood next to it, holding a large, shimmering stone in his hands. _The Legend of Dracontias_, the inscription at the bottom read.

He flipped through to the referenced page quickly, feeling a tightening excitement in his chest. Merlin, it was just a story book, but the picture of the dragon's split skull had looked uncannily like the Father's had. What if somebody had read a book like this and was seeking that... well, whatever that stone was.

He stopped at the right page and followed his finger as he scanned the entry:

_Abyssinian dragons possessed a precious gemstone within their heads, called The Dracontias Stone. These dragons lived along the present-day Ethiopian coast. They had four wings and two clawed feet, and they were adept at killing elephants._

_The Dracontias Stone was used by Alchemists to make a highly-prized magical potion, which, when imbibed, gave the drinker immunity to all types of poison._

_The Dracontias Stone had to be extracted from a living dragon as, upon death, a dragon deliberately spoiled its Dracontias Stone, making it useless for any medicinal or magical purpose. The stone had to be taken from a live dragon by means of cunning and using drugged grasses._

_These dragons are no longer found in Ethiopia. When their food supply on the coast was exhausted, groups of four dragons united and tied themselves together like rope and headed to Arabia._

Charlie read the passage a few more times, snorting at the obviously fabricated parts like the dragons having four wings and dragons tying themselves together for travel. There were no dragons in the Middle East, either, now. But the implication of the rest of the text was frightening. Somebody must have read this Muggle book and taken it as fact, or perhaps it was a truth lost to the magical world but retained through Muggle legend.

He needed to talk to somebody who knew about Alchemy and poisons. Charlie knew only one man who fit that bill. "Crap," he muttered to himself. "I need to find Severus Snape."

Snape had hadn't been seen in public since the end of his trial. He'd been acquitted, but he was either a hermit or he used a disguise when he when out in public, now. _Perhaps Draco knows where he is,_ Charlie pondered.

Luna set a tea tray down on the coffee table and nibbled at a honey and almond pastry. "Oh, I know where he is," she offered brightly.

Charlie's eyebrows rose with sharp surprise. "You do?"


	8. Alchemist

Charlie felt (and looked, he was sure) ridiculous.

He sat on the couch with the 'Secrecy Shield' on: a pair of fluffy earmuffs on his ears and a long, yellow scarf tied around them, covering his eyes and knotted firmly at the back of his head.

Had the woman never heard of Muffliato before?

"I'll go into the bathroom where I can't hear," he'd promised earnestly when she'd told him that the Floo password to Snape's house was top-secret.

_Why does Luna have the top-secret password to Snape's Floo connection, anyway?_ he thought sourly, crossing his arms over his chest as irrational jealousy rose like a bitter tide in his chest.

"Oh, no… you _have_ to wear the Secrecy Shield," Luna had said determinedly (all trace of mistiness and whimsy stripped from her no-nonsense tone). "It's the only way to ensure _complete_ privacy."

_And the biggest humiliation,_ he thought, shifting impatiently as he waited for Luna to finish her Floo call to see if Snape was home. In the end, though, the ear muffs served their purpose: Luna's voice was only a soft buzz at the edge of his senses.

After what felt like an interminable wait, he felt Luna lean over him to untie the scarf. Her long hair brushed his face, and he could feel the warmth of her skin only inches from his lips. She smelled like Pepper-Up Potion and peppermint, a combination that confused him even more because he felt a sharp urge to lick her skin and see if she tasted that way, too. He sighed when she moved back, taking the scarf and earmuffs with her. He opened his eyes. The Floo connection was still open and green flames danced up the chimney, waiting for travellers.

Perhaps Luna misread his sigh of regret for one of impatience because she ran her fingers through his hair. "Thank you for being so patient, Charlie," she said. And then she patted his head as if to imply that he'd been a good boy.

"Sure," he said, smiling in a bemused fashion. "I didn't hear or see a thing," he added because he felt the impulse to make her smile again.

She beamed at him. "Of course you didn't." She held out her hand. "Severus—" The spike of dislike that Charlie felt for Snape in that singular instant was almost overwhelming. "—said that if you simply _had_ to see him this _very_ moment, then he _supposes_ that you might as well come through. It's _not_ like his time is _ever_ his own." She did a pretty damn good imitation of Snape's snidely sardonic tone, though, and Charlie had to chuckle. He took her proffered hand and let her help him stand up.

"His Floo connection is strongly warded," Luna warned, not letting go of his hand. "And he says he's not dismantling then reassembling them for you… so you'll have to come through with me…"

That meant that few moments later, he and Luna stood nose-to-nose in the verdant flames. Luna wrapped her arms around his waist and tucked her head against his chest, under his chin. Without thought, Charlie completed the embrace, and although the situation was absurd, standing in the fireplace like that, he thought that he would have stood there forever if he could.

"Potions and passion," he thought he heard her murmur against his chest, but it could just have been the roar of the fire and the sudden spin of the Floo connection that had disoriented him.

When the world stopped spinning, Charlie loosened his arms from their protective embrace slightly and opened his eyes. The green vortex of fire swirled around them for a moment before the Floo disconnected abruptly. Luna brushed soot from his chest and stepped back from him, taking his hand again. "Come on, Charlie," she said, tugging at his hand gently as she stepped from the fireplace into a sleekly modern kitchen. "They're in the living room… they almost never use that Floo connection, though."

_They?_ Charlie thought dazedly. The kitchen looked distinctly Muggle; not anything he'd ever imagine Snape owning, to be honest. The brushed stainless steel appliances sat quiet and quiescent—completely unlike his motley crew of clattering kitchen helpers. Charlie felt a twist of anxiety. He hated being wrong-footed like this, and Luna had already kept him on his metaphorical toes all day long.

Luna led him through the kitchen and into the passage as if she knew the way very well. He couldn't help but scowl even as he was trying to solve all the little bits and clues that Luna had dropped about what to expect when he came face-to-face with Snape. The living room was softly lit by pools of golden light from pretty lamps, and a fire warmed the inviting space. Charlie's eyebrows drew together in confusion—there was something very familiar about this room. The coffee table—now topped with two glasses of red wine and a plate of cheese and biscuits—was an object that flittered frustratingly at the edge of his memory. Two heads were just visible over the back of the couch. As he and Luna walked further into the room, they turned in unison.

Charlie's mouth fell open.

Severus Snape and Hermione Granger.

"Charlie!" Hermione said warmly, a delighted smile gracing her pretty face. She rose from the couch—pressing down on one of Snape's shoulders for leverage—to greet him, and he gaped even further. What he'd not seen yesterday morning when he'd Floo-called Hermione in this very living room was that she was pregnant. A small bump swelled beneath her Muggle shirt, and she walked with one hand resting protectively on the curve of her belly.

Luna finally let go of his hand when Hermione gave him a friendly hug.

"I… er…" Charlie had reverted back to a state of flabbergasted speechlessness. "Congrats?"

"Thank you, Mr Weasley," Snape said. He stood behind Hermione, now, with one hand resting chivalrously at the small of her back, and Charlie was _sure_ the twist to his lips was amusement. How disconcerting. Charlie had only ever seen Severus Snape grimly serious or smirkingly sardonic. Never genuinely amused. The man's black eyes were no longer flat and soulless; they glittered with vitality. The greasy curtains of hair were gone, replaced by a shorter style—still lank and black as tar, though—that left the planes of his face looking hawkishly sharp. He wore Muggle jeans and a black button-down shirt with dragon hide boots.

"I… er… sure?" How _this_ current relationship had escaped the notice of the _Prophet_ and Charlie's mother was a conundrum. Charlie wondered—for a brief, panicked moment—if Luna had dragged him through the Looking Glass into an alternate reality. Or was this what those Muggles meant when they talked about paradigm shifts?

"I was led to believe that you had some urgent business to discuss, Mr Weasley?" Snape prompted after a moment. He shot a dark glance at Luna, as though he were certain she'd been fibbing. "I hope you didn't disrupt our quiet evening to stand here looking like a Fwooper?"

Indeed, Charlie had opened his mouth to speak more than once already, but the words got stuck on his tongue and they tangled awkwardly in his throat each time, leaving him gaping like a Squidget out of water.

"Severus, I told you that a dragon was killed in Romania a few days ago," Luna told him calmly.

"And I have _yet_ to understand what that has to do with me, Lovegood," he argued, although the barb had little spike to it. Charlie blinked. The comment had been almost fondly exasperated.

Hermione rolled her eyes as if this sniping were a commonplace event. "Come and sit down. Wine?" she offered.

"Thanks, Hermione," Charlie said, and Luna chimed in with her own assent.

Severus Snape looked grimly resigned to the fact that his quiet, warm, romantic evening with his lover had been irreparably damaged and sat down with remarkable grace for such a tall, angular man. Charlie sat down next to Luna on the other couch. He smiled briefly at Hermione as she slid a glass of wine onto a coaster in front of him, and he took a moment to gather his thoughts. Snape had always appreciated brevity, and Charlie didn't want to annoy him further with a long and drawn out story. Next to him, Luna had started to build a cheese and biscuit tower that she'd _never_ fit into her mouth all at once. Snape raised an eyebrow at Charlie, surprising patient. Perhaps it was the small hand on his knee that restrained his temper.

Charlie cracked his knuckles. "The Romanian dragon had its head chopped open, and none of its normally saleable parts were taken. The carcass was entirely intact except for the missing brain," Charlie said.

Snape shook his head. "That makes little sense."

Charlie nodded. "Yeah. Exactly. The dragon was alive when its brain was removed. Hermione—" He smiled at Hermione, grateful for her apparently mellowing influence on Snape. "—is busy analysing the components of the sedative potion that was used to drug the dragon."

Snape gave Charlie the double-raised eyebrows, the _What the hell are you bothering me for, then?_ look. It rapidly degenerated into the _What the fuck are you doing?_ look when Luna began to cram her creation into her mouth, spilling crumbs onto her robes and the couch.

"Well," Charlie said quickly to deflect what was sure to be a snide remark, "I found some information in a book that might explain why only the brain was taken. I'm just not entirely sure how accurate it is. It refers to alchemy, which is why I wanted to speak to you…"

He pulled the book from his pocket, Charmed it back to its original size, then opened it to the passage about the Dracontias Stone. Hermione leaned sideways to read the book over Snape's shoulder, and their eyebrows drew together in unison the further they read.

"It's compelling in its similarity, Chaz. But who would need a potion like that?" Hermione said, shaking her head. "Most poisons have a known antidote."

Charlie shrugged. "Basilisk venom, for one…"

Hermione waved a hand dismissively. "Phoenix tears are the antidote for that."

Charlie wrinkled his nose; obviously all the oddness today had fried his brain. He wasn't thinking straight anymore.

Snape seemed to be reading the passage again, following each line with a long, bony finger as if it would yield some clue from under the typewritten words. "Yes," he muttered softly.

"What, love?" Hermione demanded.

Charlie gave Luna an incredulous look. She sipped her wine serenely as though this were completely normal.

Snape traced his thin lower lip with his fingertip. "There is reference to the 'essence of dragon jewel' in some very old alchemical texts," he said eventually. "It was always dismissed as pure fancy, though… that particular alchemist smoked far too many perception-enhancing substances for his later work to ever have been taken entirely seriously. I have the book in my library…" Snape stood and exited the living room, leaving Charlie with the first grain of hope in his lap since the Father had been killed.

He smiled lopsidedly at Hermione and searched for some tactful way to ask her how she'd ended up in Snape's house… and in his bed, for that matter. "So—"

"How is Ron, Charlie?" she interrupted quietly.

Charlie grimaced. "He's living with Bill and Fleur, now. He's… struggling to cope, I think."

Hermione sighed and rubbed her belly. She smiled sadly. "I'm so sorry—"

"It's not your fault, Her—"

He glanced up at the sound of footsteps at the door. Snape moved to sit down again, and he set a heavy tome on the coffee table. To Charlie's surprise, Snape picked up a pair of reading glasses from the side table and donned them before flicking through the pages of the alchemy text. He stopped at one page, made a disgusted sound, then continued flicking through, searching for something.

Luna started to concoct another brie tower. She brushed biscuit crumbs off her fingertips after she'd finished, and she slid that hand into Charlie's. Charlie noticed that Hermione dipped her head, smiling behind her hair. He started to feel distinctly uncomfortable, and he reached forward to grab his wine—

"Ah, yes," Snape said in a self-satisfied manner. "Here it is… and that silly Muggle fantasy book seems to have been correct in part."

Charlie aborted his wine-retrieval mission. "Really?" he asked, his voice almost an octave higher in surprise.

"Indeed. This is a fairly complicated brewing process for creating an antidote to all poisons," Snape said, tapping the yellowed parchment.

Charlie was glad to have discovered _why_ the dragons were being killed: the person apparently wanted a potion so that they'd be immune against poison. But it still left him in clueless land: Which poison did they want defence against and why? And who was the killer?

He frowned. "So, any Potioneer could have access to this recipe?" he asked glumly. _That_ didn't exactly narrow the field much.

Snape's lips twisted, this time in familiar sardonic fashion. "This is not a step-by-step _recipe_ for a Strengthening Solution, Mr Weasley," he said, narrowing his eyes at Charlie. "It is an intricate instruction for an exceedingly complicated _alchemical process_. And it is in a _very_ rare grimoire."

Charlie sat up a bit straighter, and his fingers flexed reflexively around Luna's. "So, who would have access to this very intricate instruction?" he asked, earning himself a narrow-eyed slice of disapproval for his repetition of Snape's phrasing.

Snape closed the book and drummed his fingers on the cover. "Flamel, Dumbledore… both of whom are deceased." His lips twitched slightly, and his nostrils flared. "I inherited their alchemy libraries, though." Snape shrugged and took Hermione's hand absently. "Masters Yang, Gorodetsky, Ferrer, Cataneaneu and Boddit will certainly have copies. But they have illustrious careers, and I doubt they would jeopardise them unless it were for something very important. And then, of course, many of the old pure-blood families may have this book in their libraries… Malfoy, Nott, Zabini, Yaxley, Krum—"

Hermione gave a little cry of protest. "Viktor would never—"

Snape smirked at Hermione, obviously having included that name just to get a rise out of her. And then he winked—_winked!_—at her. Hermione rolled her eyes at Snape. Luna laughed, her silvery laugh winding its magic through the room. Snape smirked. Charlie wondered which potion he could drink that would take him back to reality.

"That's a long list," Charlie said with a sigh.

"Well, I'll have finished your compositional analysis by tomorrow morning," Hermione said. "Perhaps the sedative potion will have an ingredient in it that will be easy to track. Coupled with the information about the Dracontias potion, you might be able to point to a suspect."

Charlie realised that this was as good as it was going to get until the following morning. "Thank you," he said sincerely.

Hermione smiled at him, but Severus Snape pegged him with a fierce look. "I hardly need to tell you that I'd like you to keep the circumstances of our private life to yourself—"

Charlie was already nodding vigorously in agreement when the owl scratched at the window. Luna unfolded her hand from his and went over to open the window. The owl—accompanied by a shaft of icy night air—lanced into the living room. A letter landed on Charlie's lap, the owl swooped down on the cheese and crackers plate, stealing a talon-full of stinky blue cheese, and then arrowed back out of the window. Luna shut the window again, and when she sat down next to him, there was barely an inch between them this time.

Charlie frowned as he recognised the scrawl on the envelope. Tonks. What could be wrong, now? He unfolded the parchment and skim-read the note:

_Chaz,_

_Get your arse over to the Hebrides Reserve RIGHT NOW!  
There's been another dragon killing._

"Oh, dear," murmured Luna, who was reading over his shoulder. Charlie couldn't bring himself to mind too much at this point. "There's been a dragon killing on the Irish reservation," she narrated for Snape and Hermione.

_I'm still clearing up jurisdiction issues, but I think ILA is going to  
give it to me, since I have the first case under my belt. I'm calling  
you in as my 'expert dragonologist', which should get us through  
the red tape. Lachlan says he's fine with that, so no worries on  
that side of things._

_Tonks._

Charlie felt a little bad that he hadn't let Tonks know about his progress on the case yet. "I need to go," Charlie said, standing up. "I'm sorry to be—"

"No, it's fine, Charlie, we understand," Hermione assured, letting Snape help her to her feet. "I'll speak to you tomorrow morning when I get the results of the analysis."

Charlie turned to Snape. "Thank you, sir—"

"Call me Severus, Charlie," Snape interrupted.

Charlie felt his eyebrows rise, but he nodded. "Thank you… Severus."

Snape nodded curtly, and he handed Charlie a pot of Floo powder. "The wards will allow you to Floo out of our home." But not into it, Charlie understood. "Keep me informed of who's behind this? I'm very interested to know who is trying to create the potion."

"So am I," Charlie agreed with a nod. "But I will do."

He took a handful of Floo powder, but before he could sprinkle it onto the fire, Luna put her hand on his shoulder and leaned forward to whisper in his ear: "Your bag is still at my house. When you're done, my password is Loony. You're still welcome to stay, Charlie." She moved her head back to smile at him. "I'd like that." And then she leaned forward again and kissed him, briefly, on his lips. He spilled half a handful of Floo powder onto Hermione's carpet. "And that was an old tradition. It means goodbye for now," she told him seriously, her eyes reflecting his own, shocked expression.

Hermione turned her face into Severus' shoulder, and her shoulders shuddered once or twice before she lifted her head and smiled at Charlie. "Bye for now, Chaz," she said.

"Ah… er… yeah," Charlie managed to say as he stepped into the fireplace—it expanded to fit his tall frame magically, like all wizarding fireplaces do. "Hebridean Blue," he murmured, and as he started to spin into the Floo connection, he thought he saw Luna smile and then touch her lower lip with her index finger.

* * *

Author's Note: ILA is short for: International League of Aurors.  
Thank you to Gelsey for proof-reading.


	9. Hebridean Blues

"—still don't see why I should have to cede _my_ crime scene to you, when you're _supposed_ to be working in bloody Romania!"

Charlie exited the Floo Network and stepped into chaos. The homely kitchen at the Hebrides Reserve was packed to capacity and buzzing with half a dozen loud conversations. In his immediate range of vision, Tonks was arguing loudly with a young, blond Auror who had gelled, spiky hair and an arrogant demeanour.

"Because—" Tonks almost thrust a piece of parchment up the man's snub nose. "—ILA has decided that _this_ crime scene is related to the one in Romania and that I am better _qualified_ to handle it, Smith." Her hair rippled into a triumphant orange shade.

Smith wore a sneer that would have made Draco proud. He didn't back down but took half a step forward so that he was shouting in Tonk's face. "Qualified! Hah! You wouldn't know qualified if you _tripped_ over it… Which wouldn't be hard, for you!"

It was almost better than watching International Quidditch. For a moment, Charlie forgot why he had come to the Hebrides Reserve, and his eyebrows rose higher with each spiked volley of words.

Tonk's hair flickered purple with indignation. "Watch your mouth, Aurorling… you're talking to a superior officer—"

"You're not my superior any more; you defected to the communists, remember?" Smith blustered.

Charlie winced as Tonk's hair turned olive-green. Smith was asking for a hexing, and he was sure to get it, and soon. Charlie knew Tonk's temper all too well from their Hogwarts days; she had a short fuse when challenged.

"Do you _WANT_ to get your arse—"

"Charlie!" A large, rugged, red-headed man squeezed in front of the two bickering Aurors with a smile, although it did seem a little weary and forced.

"Lachlan," Charlie said, shaking his hand, "I'm sorry to hear about your loss, mate."

Lachlan winced, then stuck his finger into his left ear and wiggled it. "Gawd, it's stuffy in here. Did you want to talk outside until Tonks is finished lambasting the novice?"

Charlie nodded and followed the broad man through the crowd, ducking under copper saucepans hanging from the rafters, past old Mrs MacFusty—she was hauling a large dish of potatoes out of the oven—and into the night air.

"Bloody hell!" Lachlan MacFusty exclaimed. He came from a long line of dragon keepers who had always taken care of the Hebridean Blacks on the island reservation. "Once they heard, all the keepers and their apprentices showed up, and now Mam's cooking them all tea! And then there's the Healers from St Mungo's, too."

Charlie frowned, confused. He was under the impression it had been a dragon that had been killed. "Why did you need Healers?"

Lachlan rubbed a ham-sized hand over his face. "Oh, Merlin! It's been a right awful night, I tell you." He fixed Charlie with a serious, grim expression. "Your dragon was killed _outside_ of your wards, yeah?"

Charlie nodded, although he wasn't sure where this conversation was heading to.

Lachlan fumbled in his pockets for a packet of cigarettes, and he lit one with the tip of his wand. "We didn't _have_ any dragons outside the wards. The fuckers who did this put Johnson under the Imperius Curse, and they forced him to bring them through the Floo connection. The guys on duty were busy feeding the hatchlings in the shed, and they didn't hear a bloody thing. Whoever did this, they did their homework."

Charlie was incredulous at the audacity of the person who'd now killed two dragons. And now to learn that they'd used an Unforgivable on one of the 'crowd' was horrifying. "Is Kyle all right?" Despite working on different dragon reservations, all the keepers knew one another from cross-reservation visits and drinking binges; it was a close-knit community of dragon lovers.

Lachlan shrugged. "They Obliviated him good and solid, too," he said, sighing out heavily along with a stream of smoke. "He can't remember what he fucking ate for breakfast, let alone who did it to him. But, yeah, he'll be fine physically."

The door opened and Tonks stomped out to join them after slamming the heavy wooden door so hard it vibrated on its hinges. "Argh! Son of a Basilisk. They should never have let him out of training," she muttered mutinously as she stopped level with the two red-headed men. She took a deep, fortifying breath. "Chaz," she said, and her sharp, pinched features evened out as her hair reverted to bubblegum pink.

Charlie gave her a wry smile. "So, you've sorted out your _jurisdiction issues_, then?"

She rolled her eyes. "Zacharias Smith is far too big for his baby Auror boots," she spat, and a shower of angry sparks vomited from her tightly-clenched wand.

Charlie held up his hands and pretended to back away from her. "Well, he _does_ know how to push your buttons."

She gave him a poisonous glare as Lachlan chuckled heartily. But the moment of levity was all too brief: Tonk's expression became grim and serious again, and Lachlan's jaw tightened with stress.

"Let's get on with it, then?" Tonks suggested.

Lachlan nodded, and he gestured to a line of brooms leaning against the wall nearby. "It's a fair way from the farm house," he told them. "I've got two keepers guarding the… corpse. Nobody's been near since we found her. You know where it is, Tonks… I'm…" The big man's fists clenched, and Charlie could sense he was fighting his emotions.

Up in the air, the wind was icy and biting, as if the night were grieving, too. Usually, flying gave Charlie a rush of joy—it was only his love of dragons that'd stopped him from playing Quidditch for England—but there was only heavy resignation in his heart as he rode to see another slain dragon.

The scene was identical to the one he'd seen in Romania, only this dragon lay butchered on a carpet of winter-grey heather. Charlie turned his back on the gruesome sight as Tonks started her scene investigation, his jaw clenched. A shield had been Conjured in a wide perimeter around the scene, and a dozen dragons hovered just at its periphery, more black and mournful than the night. Their high-pitched, grieving roars wrapped around his heart like barb-wire, and he fought not to cry. Instead, he replaced his sadness with grim determination. He would find the bastard who'd done this, and he'd help to send him to Abzaban.

"Found the same blue grass," Tonks called out to him, sounding horribly nasal because she'd adopted a nose without nostrils again. "It's the same MO, all right!"

Charlie nodded. "Hermione will have the compositional analysis ready for us by tomorrow."

"Good man!" Tonks said, patting his shoulder as she passed behind him. "I knew there was a reason I appointed you as sidekick."

Charlie snorted, and he kicked at a squat growth of heather. "Sidekick, my—"

"Oh, Great Godric!" Tonks exclaimed.

"What?" Charlie said, his heart jumping to his throat as he turned sharply on his heel to face her.

"Come look here," Tonks said urgently.

Charlie moved quickly, avoiding a hissing, steaming pool of purple dragon blood and went to stand next to her.

"Here," she said, pointing to a large, flat scale on the dragon's shoulder.

Charlie put a hand over his nose and mouth and leaned forward to have a closer look. The scale looked different to the rest; it didn't shimmer like obsidian in the moonlight because a slick of _red_ blood covered it. Human blood!

"It got him! He must have cut himself removing the brain this time!" Tonks exclaimed. "Do you _know_ what this means?"

Charlie stepped back from the stinking dragon corpse and shook his head, feeling a bit stupid because he was sure her question had been rhetorical. "Um… no?"

Tonks followed him, stripping off her latex gloves. "It means that there _might_ be a chance to find out who did this! If…" She trailed off, looking worried.

"If what?" Charlie asked. He didn't understand blood magic very well, but even so, that sort of thing was Dark magic! "Blood magic?" he asked tentatively.

Tonks Banished the Muggle gloves and sighed heavily. "There's no blood magic that can do that, no," she said, shaking her head. "Most of it is focussed on doing nasty things with blood when you already know whose blood it is." She shrugged unapologetically. "Aurors do some Dark Arts training; we have to know what we're up against, you know."

Charlie nodded. "Understandable. But if it's not blood magic, then what are you talking about?"

Tonks talked as she Charmed a pretty impressive shield around the dragon, probably to prevent anybody from contaminating her new, vital evidence. "There's a Charms Master who can derive the magical signature of somebody from their blood," she explained as her wand blurred in a series of intricate arcs and twists. "And because we were all under the Trace until we were seventeen, the Ministry has records of magical signatures. It's a matter of cross-referencing to find out who a particular magical signature belongs to. They're all unique, like Muggle fingerprints."

Charlie jumped at the idea that they could find the killer so easily. "What are you hesitating for, then?" he demanded.

Tonks sighed. "It's not exactly Light magic, either," she said. "And it's not exactly something the Ministry normally condones. Plus, it's a violation of magical privacy. The records are there, yeah, but they've never actually been used for anything."

Charlie scowled. "It sounds like you've done this before, though," he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

Tonks shrugged. "We've only ever used it when we have a nameless, wandless victim. I'm not sure if Dawlish would—"

"We _have_ to try, Tonks," Charlie insisted. "I think I've found out why the killer is doing this." Charlie gestured at the dragon corpse with one wing folded at an unnatural angle under its hind leg. "He thinks there's a magical stone inside a dragon's head, and he wants to use it to make a potion that would give him immunity against all types of poison. This _has_ to be part of a bigger scheme—"

"Why didn't you tell me that earlier, you dolt!" Tonks demanded, smacking his arm.

"I only found out a few hours ago," he muttered.

Tonks clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth a few times, obviously thinking. "OK," she drawled, "let's go back to the farm house and I'll Floo Dawlish."

"Now we're talking," said Charlie, slinging his leg over his broomstick. "Race you back," he called as he shot into the air, leaving Tonks on the ground with a five-second disadvantage.

* * *

A sharp smack on the back of his head woke him. "Wake up, Chaz," Tonks demanded.

He lifted his head from his arms and blinked groggily. The kitchen was mostly empty now, and the clock above the fireplace tinkled softly, twice, as he rubbed his eyes and yawned hugely. He felt like he was in a haze—a sleepy one this time, rather than the surreal otherworldness of the visit to Snape's house. He couldn't remember falling asleep. Perhaps he'd put his head onto his arms to steal a few moments of relaxation, yes, but it'd never been his intention to fall asleep.

"Wassit?" he mumbled through another yawn.

"I can't believe you can still sleep anywhere," Tonks said. "You were snoring, by the way." She slid a cup of coffee in front of him and then perched on the edge of the table next to him as he folded his fingers around the warmth of the mug.

He ignored her obvious attempt to pick a fight and took a sip of coffee. "Thanks," he said. His head started to clear a little. Lachlan's big, black Labrador lay stretched out in front of the glowing embers but otherwise it was just him and Tonks.

"It took a while," Tonks said, "and some high-level approval, apparently, but I've got the go-ahead." She twisted her lips wryly. "But if it gets out that they gave me permission or if the _Prophet_ latches onto how we caught the guy, I'll be mopping the floor at the Leaky Cauldron for the rest of my life."

Charlie smiled at her and crossed his heart—an unspoken promise that he'd never say a word. "Now what?" he asked.

"We're waiting for Miles—he's the Charms Master I contract in sometimes." She glanced at the fireplace, which still sat warm and quiescent. "I had to haul him out of bed, but he shouldn't be too much—"

The fireplace flared green, and the Labrador jerked in its sleep. A moment later, a slim blond man spun into view, and Tonks hopped off the table. The man stepped over the dog nimbly and began to brush the residual soot from his tight shirt. He dressed like a dragon keeper, Charlie noted with surprise: tight, black leather pants and dragon hide boots. Although the bed-head hair and smudges of black eyeliner didn't quite fit the profile. The Charms Master also had intricate tattoos around each wrist, like those he'd seen Bill sporting. Charlie had a moment of doubt; the man looked younger than Ginny was... Masters usually got better with age and experience. But if Tonks trusted him...

The Charms Master glanced up at Tonks with ice-blue eyes. "This had better be worth it because—Well, hello," he drawled in a German accent, giving Charlie what was most certainly a thoroughly assessing up-and-down look. Charlie had the sudden urge to cross his hands over his crotch. He felt the back of his neck getting warm.

Tonk's hair turned bright pink; she gave new meaning to 'tinkled pink'. "Charlie, this is Miles Ritter," Tonks said. Charlie thought she sounded like she was enjoying this far more than she had any right to.

Miles extended his hand. "My _pleasure_," he said, and somehow he made it sound like something obscenely sinful. Despite Charlie's suspicion that Miles was on the crooked side of straight, Miles' handshake was far from limp. The German tilted his head to the side and pursed his lips in a pout. "Charlie… Are you Jani's Charlie?" he asked.

Charlie's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "I… er… Jani was my apprentice, yeah. Do you know her?" The answer to his question was patently obvious, though, and Charlie could only give himself a mental head slap.

But Miles grinned and nodded enthusiastically. "Oh, ja, for sure," he said, and his icy eyes warmed several degrees. "Jani is one of my best friends since I moved to London."

"Then you must know Trent as well?" Charlie stated.

Miles' answering smile was wicked. "Oh, ja, I know Trent," he said, and then he gave Tonks a sly look before turning back to Charlie. "He blushes almost as red as you do when I am flirting," Miles told him with a wicked little smirk twisting his full lips.

Now, Charlie's flush reached his hairline, and he wanted to sink into the kitchen floor, never to be found again.

Tonks packed up laughing. "Oh, stop it," she chided, poking Miles in the shoulder with a finger. She turned to Charlie and patted his arm. "Ignore him; he's practically married, aren't you, Ritter?"

Miles sighed and put his hand over his heart. "You spoil all my fun, Ministry scourge." He gave Charlie a genuine smile. "She's right, and anyway, I like my men with dark hair."

"All right, all right, settle down, you overpriced prat," said Tonks.

"And you'd better believe I'm charging double time tonight," Miles told Tonks cheekily. He lost the mischievous sparkle to his eyes and sobered as he got down to business. "So… you said that you wanted to extract a magical signature from a specimen of blood?"

Tonks nodded. "We'll have to fly out to the scene of the killing."

Miles blanched a little, Charlie was amused to see. "I have to… go near the dead dragon?"

* * *

Once, Charlie had been out of bed after curfew because Percy had woken quietly, his face tight and anxious.

"Fred and George are out of bed, again!" he'd whispered urgently.

And so, because Percy refused to set foot past the Fat Lady for fear of losing house points, Charlie had gone searching for them, tiptoeing between the shadows, slinking along the stone walls. He'd never found Fred and George that night because, dodging Snape, he'd ducked into the Charms classroom.

Professor Flitwick had never heard the door swing open and closed, so intent was he on the magic he wove. Instead of retreating immediately, Charlie had watched, entranced, as the diminutive wizard had used two wands in tandem to weave an undulating, shimmering magical field into the very fabric of the stone wall.

And now, equally amazed, he watched another Master at work. After his initial bout of whining and complaining—including a near-hexing by Tonks when he'd questioned the strength of her Shield Charm—Miles Ritter had set to work with almost blind concentration. Where Flitwick's magical haze had been a sight to rival the Northern Lights… blues and greens and purples, this magic was warm. The interweaving field lines flickered red, orange and gold in a rhythm like a beating heart.

Tonks—her hair a striped style of sympathetic colours—leaned closer. "Red for blood," she murmured. "And our magical essence is golden, apparently."

Charlie had been around and studied magic his entire life. But in the face of the sunny glow, he felt like he'd known nothing at all about its true substance. Magic was not invisible or something you drew on in your mind. It was as vital and real as life. It was painted in vivid colours and blinding light. It was beautiful.

When Miles dropped his wands, Charlie almost protested aloud at the loss of the living magic.

"I have it," Miles said, and he jumped over the blood-sodden soil to stand with them, tucking both wands into an arm holster. "It will take some time for the comparison to be done, and then you are not even guaranteed that this killer was attending Hogwarts. Your Ministry has only their data." His lips twisted wryly. "Are you sure you do not want to start with Durmstrang?"

Tonks snorted. "Oh, please. You Durmstrang crowd have got an overblown sense of your own evilness. Voldemort was _way_ worse than Grindelwald," she said.

Miles grimaced and stuck his tongue out at her. "But Gellert was much prettier…"

Charlie looked bemused. It sounded like this was a commonplace exchange. He wondered how they ever got any work done when Tonks contracted Miles in.

Tonks shook her head. "Tom was hot when he was—"

"How long will it take?" Charlie cut in, bringing them back to the investigation.

Miles shrugged. "Maybe… two hours, maybe eight, maybe immediately. It depends… the Trace details are stored alphabetically, so I don't know."

Charlie rubbed his face with a hand as he felt a sudden wave of tiredness overtake him. The dawn was already pinking the horizon, and he'd had little sleep. "Let me know when you find out," he said.

Tonks nodded. "I'll Floo you at home."

Charlie started to nod, but he suddenly remembered that his bag and his wallet were at Luna's flat. He made a quick decision. "Ah… er… I'll be at Luna Lovegood's place," he told her and inexorably, a flush warmed his cheeks.

Charlie was tired and cranky enough to want to hex the two of them for the twin expressions of contemplative curiosity that were shot in his direction.


	10. Stunned

A few moments after the Fwooper clock had screeched seven times, Charlie stepped out of Luna Lovegood's fireplace.

"_Stupefy!_"

The incantation was vague and distorted through the _whoosh_ of the dying Floo connection, and he barely had time to widen his eyes before he fell heavily to the floor in a scarlet halo of spell flare.

* * *

"Charlie… Charlie, wake up!"

Charlie didn't open his eyes; exhaustion coupled with a blinding headache made him want to slip back to unconsciousness. Luna's voice usually sounded like silver bells, but this morning it was a clashing of cymbals—far too loud and annoying. He grimaced and groaned softly; he hurt… somewhere. He just couldn't figure out where. At that moment it was just a vague ache that seemed to throb through all of his muscles, a throbbing that increased in amplitude so that by the time it reached his head, it was a Boggart in his brain, rattling with all its might to get out.

"_Ennervate_!"

Charlie's eyes flew open as all of his muscles received a bolt of adrenaline. For the love of Merlin! Didn't she know that you don't apply the counter-curse when the person was already awake? "I was awake," Charlie grumbled. His body still felt like lead, but his mind was whizzing like he'd had ten cups of espresso.

"I wanted to make sure you were all right, that the Tetrabytes didn't get you and drag you off into the Gloom." Luna's expression was contrite and concerned. Her long, blonde hair was loose and snared in wild tangles, and she wore a white nightdress edged with broidery anglais. She took his hand in both of hers. "I'm so sorry, Charlie," she said, her eyes wide and silver and shimmering with tears. "I forgot you were coming back this morning, and I was still half-asleep when the Floo connected. It was just… reflex, you know, from the war."

Unfortunately Charlie _knew_ all too well—for months and months after, the slightest sound behind him had set him whirling on his heel, wand tightly clenched, war-grimace in place—and his expression softened slightly. He squeezed Luna's hand. "I'll live," he said, and he hissed in through his teeth as he shifted to sit up straight on the couch.

"Oh, your elbow… I think you hit it on the edge of the coffee table," Luna said. She reached for her wand. "I can fix it for you…"

"Ah. It's fine, really," Charlie said quickly, remembering the stories about Harry's missing bones, although that _had_ been Lockhart, admittedly. Still, he wasn't sure he trusted Luna with her wand after she'd just used it to blast him off his feet.

"Well, some tea, maybe?" Luna asked, a frown of concern still creasing her forehead.

"Yeah, thanks," he said, moving his neck this way then that so that his neck clicked with a grating sound. The utter clarity of thought that the Ennervate had given him was disconcerting, and he knew that it wouldn't last long before he crashed, falling hard down the steep side of the dizzying high he was now on. A million questions galloped though his mind, and he closed his eyes because he felt a bit queasy.

"There you go," Luna said softly as she sat down beside him again and set a cup of tea on the coffee table.

"Thanks. So, when did Snape—Severus—and Hermione…" He asked the first question to flitter into his head, catching firmly onto the thought before it whizzed away, anchoring it with spoken words. Still, he struggled to concentrate on her answer. Despite his weary bones, his mind wanted to go out and party, all night long.

"About a year ago," Luna said, drawing her knees up under her chin. Her nightgown was long and covered most of her feet, revealing only her electric-blue painted toenails. Charlie wondered what possessed a person to paint their toenails that colour. But still, Tonks wore green on her fingernails sometimes, which was infinitely worse, he thought.

_What were we talking about again?_ Charlie leaned forward to pick up his tea, buying a moment to grasp desperately for the lost conversation thread. He caught sight of a photograph of the Secret Six on the mantle. _Oh, yeah. Hermione and Severus!_ "I wouldn't have guessed they'd become a couple... not in a million years." To his overtaxed brain, his voice sounded slow and distorted, like one of those stretched Muggle tapes. He rubbed at his temple, and just as he thought his brain might launch to the moon, it began to slow its frenetic thought hopping, and he breathed over the surface of his tea in relief, feeling relaxation bleed into his bones.

Luna smiled. "I wasn't surprised, really," she said. "Hermione always admired him at school. I think she even had a bit of a crush on him. Although his killing Dumbledore put a dent in that for a bit." She fiddled with the hem of her nightgown. "I would have been more surprised if she'd ended up with Ron in the long-term, actually. They didn't suit each other. Hermione is so self-possessed, and I don't think that Ron has found himself yet."

Charlie was astounded by the depth of her insight.

He suddenly remembered one summer's day at the Burrow. Ron must have been about four, and he'd joined the brothers for a game of hide-and-seek in the garden. By then, Bill and Charlie knew all the best spots to hide, and the twins were ultra sneaky and good at blending in-between the weeds. Poor Percy usually ended up being 'it' every second time they'd played.

Late in the afternoon, after their mother had called them in to clean up for tea, and they'd started to scoff great slices of homemade bread and jam, Molly had said: "Ronnie… where's Ronniekins?"

Charlie had found him, in the end, down at the bottom of the garden, still hiding behind a large growth of hydrangeas.

"Did I win, Chaz, did I win?" Ron had asked. "I hidded the best, didn't I?"

"Yes. Yes, you did," Charlie had told him as he'd carried his lost brother up to the house.

How had could Ron ever have managed to find himself when even his brothers forgot he was there? Never mind being overshadowed by Harry Potter. In the shade of his siblings, Ron had never grown. Charlie felt a sudden surge of guilt for his acute impatience with his younger brother. "Yeah, I think you're right, Luna," he said after a while. In her own, unique way, Luna had cut to the heart of the matter.

Charlie took a sip of his tea, and Luna must have read the surprise on his face because she said, "Sugar will keep the Tetrabytes at bay," she said earnestly.

Charlie decided that he'd drink the syrupy-sweet tea rather than ask what a Tetrabyte was. He didn't have the energy to find out all about what the Gloom was either. It might have been the warmth of the tea or the quietly calm company or just the steep slide down the hill of an unnatural high, but Charlie settled back against the cushions, and he felt his mind slow to molasses as his eyes weighed closed.

_When all of this is over,_ he thought drowsily, _I'll take Ron on a trip, a trip free of the burden of expectations he's been weighted with recently, a trip where he can find himself…_

The last thing he remembered was Luna taking his cup from his hands before he spilled the dregs of his tea all over himself.

* * *

His sleep was punctuated with dreams—brief commas of searching, searching for something he was desperate to find; exclamation marks of screaming dragons and purple blood searing his empty, empty hands; seeking the ever-elusive answer to a sharply curved and bitter question mark. And then he was in the dark, a dark with no bottom, and he was looking for Ron. But he couldn't find him no matter how hard he shouted, how blindly he fumbled, how hard he prayed. At one point the scent of sage wound into his subconscious and a fleeting touch of soft lips against his stilled him to peaceful rest.

When Charlie woke up, he was alone in Luna's flat. A haze of incense lingered, and the bright winter's daylight sparkled off a dreamcatcher hanging in the lounge window. There was a note on the coffee table, penned in a loopy script:

_Dear Charlie,_

_Sage for cleansing and protection against negative energy.  
Help yourself to lunch—I don't mind._

_Luna._

He smiled, unaccountably touched that she'd wanted to still his dreams. And it had worked, remarkably. He _was_ hungry, having missed out on Ma MacFusty's tea last night. _But before that,_ he thought wryly, sniffing the collar of his t-shirt, _I need a shower._

First, though, he unfolded that morning's edition of the _Eye of Horus_. A Portkey had dumped its passengers into the middle of the Bermuda Triangle; The Gimbi Giant-Slayers had trounced the Karasjok Kites and were bragging that they'd do the same to the Vratsa Vultures next week (_As if_, Charlie thought); Hassan El-Fayed was dead, his death attributed to natural causes, said the Egyptian MLE (_Natural causes, my arse_, thought Charlie, heavily disappointed he'd not even had time to bet on the lifespan of the marriage); Kingsley Shacklebolt was visiting the Egyptian Minister of Magic; the price of cauldrons had increased by twenty percent over the last year. _Not one word about the dragon killings,_ thought Charlie bitterly. He tossed the paper back on the coffee table and hauled himself up off the couch, stretching all the aches and pains out.

After he'd showered and changed into clean clothes, Charlie stepped out of Luna's bathroom. A brightly-painted wall mural further down the passage caught his eye, and with a little twinge of snooper's guilt, he walked further into her flat to have a look. On the floor, in a neat row next to the skirting board, were little pots of paint and paintbrushes. Charlie recognized the all of the faces painted on the wall: Harry, Hermione, Neville, Severus, Ginny and… half-completed but clearly recognisable, his own face. Charlie stood open-mouthed, his heart lurching oddly in his chest.

He touched a finger to the swathe of freckles on his counterpart's cheek. He wasn't sure if it was exceptionally sweet or very creepy. In fact, he hadn't had much time to think about what his nascent friendship with Luna meant or even how he felt about her. The last few days had been so chaotic that Luna's quirkiness hadn't really bothered him. Her references to mystical and made-up magical creatures didn't aggravate him… they were bright moments of levity in his long and busy days. Her sometimes odd and meandering rationalisation about things had made a good deal of sense to him, for the most part. There was no doubt that she was a beautiful woman, that he was physically attracted to her. Merlin, she had beautiful hair! How he'd love to feel it tickle across his chest like silk… He coughed, feeling a little warm, and he dropped his hand with a sigh. _But_ his perception of normal was _so_ skewed at the moment. Could he really—

"Charlie!"

Something crashed to the floor and shattered.

"Ow! Fuck fuckity fuck!"

He drew his wand and tiptoed down the passage, hugging the wall. It sounded like Tonks, but you could never be too careful. Thumping noises, now, like somebody jumping on one leg.

"Charlie! Where the bloody hell are you?"

Charlie peered around the corner, surveying the living room, and he lowered his wand. Tonks had shattered a vase when she'd Floo'd in, spilling the blue and green marbles Luna had put inside it across the floor like a sea of secrets. "I'm here," he said, giving her an exasperated look.

Tonk's features were sharp with stress, and her irises and her hair were black like rage. She put her hand onto the mantle to steady herself, knocking over a domino of framed pictures in the process. Charlie groaned; Luna was going to be upset that all her memories had cascaded to the floor.

"Leave that!" Tonks barked as he bent to pick them up.

He straightened up, his eyebrows rising. "What?"

Tonks was patting each little decorative pot on the mantle, now. "Floo powder, Floo powder, where the hell does she keep her Floo powder?"

"_What_ is going on, Tonks?" Charlie demanded sharply, reaching down to pick up the right pot from the coffee table. "Here—"

She snatched the pot from his hand and reactivated the Floo network. "Let's _go_!"

Charlie stood his ground, his jaw stubbornly stiff. "I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what is going on, Tonks."

She looked angry enough to spit flames at him, and her face twisted into a grimace of disgust. "I wanted to tell you when we got there, to save time," she said with a tremendous sigh. "I need your help." She looked sad now, and her eyes were the deep green of lifeless, lightless ocean depths. "We found a magical signature match for the blood," she said flatly. "It's Ron."

* * *

Author's Note: Thank you to Gelsey for proof-reading.


	11. Seethe

_I trusted him. I tried to help him. And he betrayed me._

Like so many pieces of a puzzle drifting down and interlocking to form a bigger picture, Charlie remembered random wisps of conversations he'd had with Ron. Now, in the stark aftermath of shock, they all made blinding sense and came together to weave a disturbing image.

"So," Ron had drawled one evening soon after he'd arrived to stay with Charlie, "how many dragons do you take care of?"

_And I was only too happy to go on for ages about all my dragons and the workings of the reserve because Ron was taking an interest._

And a few days later: "Maybe you can get me a job at the reserve. You know, like cleaning out stalls or something." Perhaps it had been fortunate that the reserve had been fully staffed at the time and that you had to be a fully-hired apprentice to gain access to any work there.

And the following week: "All the dragons live in the reserve, then?" Ron had asked nonchalantly over a tea of fish and chips.

_And then I told him about the sentinels and how they guarded the reserve boundaries. And a few days later the Father was dead…_

Anger seethed through Charlie's blood like poison. Each step he took across the polished wood foyer of Cairo's Ministry of Magic was like a dynamo pressurising his rage until it pounded in his head and curled his fingers into fists. He was still too angry to feel the inevitable sense of betrayal that was hounding the edges of the black rage like a circling Dementor.

_If the Dementors don't Kiss him first, I'll kill him with my bare hands. I felt _sorry_ for him a few hours ago… I wanted to help him! And all along he's been a traitorous dragon killer!_

He didn't notice the exquisite desert murals on the walls. He was blind to the large statue of Imhotep next to the Floo entrances and the beautiful pyramidal fountain, which dribbled a shimmering sheath of water down its glass sides.

He barely heard Tonk's voice above the roiling tempest in his mind. "—both Britain _and_ Romania want to extradite him for the dragon killings, and they're having an argy-bargy about who gets him. In the meanwhile, Cairo is holding him on suspicion of illegal activity, but that's just a favour that the Head of the MLE here is doing for me… until I can get a story out of him. He's refusing to talk." Tonks stopped talking as they reached the bank of lifts, and she gave him a quizzical glance.

In the burnished brass lift doors, Charlie saw that his face was contorted into a fierce grimace. He grunted because Tonks seemed to be seeking some sort of reply from him, but he kept his jaw grimly clenched.

"Bill was off at work when the Aurors arrested Ron," Tonks continued, stress still tightening her voice. "I couldn't get hold of him via owl or Floo; he's down checking on some tomb, apparently. And Fleur was just about hysterical. I swear to Merlin I thought she was going to Morph when we told her she couldn't come with Ron. Or maybe it was because she was so pissed off with him."

Charlie made a low noise in the back of his throat again, to indicate that he was listening, sort of. The doors of the lift finally slid open, and Charlie took another step closer to murdering his brother. Just before the doors slid closed, a scarlet envelope darted into the enclosed space with them, smouldering at the edges already. Tonks sighed and pushed the button for the lowest bowels of the Egyptian Ministry, and then she opened the Howler.

Perhaps he'd been expecting a Slavic-tinged accent, or even one from London's Ministry of Magic, but the voice that screeched and swirled around them like a hurricane was his mother's. It was enough to distract him from his furious brooding for a moment.

"Nymphadora Tonks! You bring my son back to England _this instant_! Your intelligence—Ha! Intelligence!—is obviously _wrong_. Ronniekins would _never_, ever do anything illegal. He helped _Harry Potter_ defeat _You-Know-Who_, for Merlin's sake! Don't you _dare_ take another of my sons away from me! Don't you dare—" A ragged sob ended the message.

In the vacuum of silence that followed, both Charlie and Tonks stared at the floor of the lift. Flecks of ash from the Howler filtered through the uncomfortable atmosphere like the aftermath of a cataclysm. In all of his righteous anger, Charlie had forgotten about the effect this would have on his mother, how it might rip a tenuously mended family apart again, how their grief might spill scarlet into the air. The mist of black rage started to lift, and Charlie remembered that he was a Weasley, that he had to help sort this mess out because his family's sanity was at stake.

"I—" Charlie's voice was hoarse, and he cleared his throat. "What did you need me to help with, Tonks?" he asked.

Tonks reached out to press the 'stop' button. The lift shuddered to a halt. She turned to him, her lips drawn into a thin line. "He refused to answer any questions. Veritaserum was administered." She was speaking in a quick monotone, as if to make it hurt less that she was talking about his brother. "He still refused to answer any questions—"

"_Imperio!_" Charlie interrupted, feeling a knife-sharp stab of hope pierce the gloom. "That's the only thing that counteracts Veritaserum, isn't it?" Gods. If Ron was under the Imperius Curse… It was still horrible, but it meant that his brother wasn't a sadistic little fuck, that he was just a victim—

Tonks clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, and her lips twisted into a sour grimace. "That's the first thing we checked, Charlie," she said. "_Finite Imperio_ didn't give any marked change in his demeanour; we tried it _four_ times!"

Charlie deflated as the gloom pushed back to smother the nascent fluttering of hope. "Oh."

"We took a blood sample from him, and the forensics department matched it to the blood sample by traditional methods, too."

"Oh." The gloom began to spin around him, to gather momentum, to spark the anger again. "So what _exactly_ do you want me to do, Tonks?" he snapped. "He's obviously guilty—send the little shit to Azkaban or Nuremgard or Anubis and get it over and done with!"

Tonk's hair was a vile mustard colour, the colour of frustration. "We need to know _why_ they wanted that damn Dragon-thingy Stone! Even you said you thought it might be part of a wider conspiracy. What if he was part of a larger team? Veritaserum immunity is damn serious stuff, Chaz… I don't know if Ron could have achieved that by himself." She sighed heavily. "Look. It's not fair to bring you down here. It's not even standard procedure to let you talk to him—the Wizengamot is probably going freak out when they find out. But I need you to talk to him, to see if he'll talk to you. Otherwise he's going to jail, Chaz, and no matter how much I love you and your family, there's nothing I can do to stop it."

A muscle jumped in Charlie's jaw, and he crossed his arms over his chest as he thought it over. He didn't want to talk to Ron—Merlin, he was afraid he'd take one look at him and smash his fist into Ron's face. But his mother would expect him to try. Bill would do it; Bill had a patient way about him and enough patience to coax a tomb open for months and months. He nodded slightly. "OK," he said, reaching forward to start the lift going again. "Let's go."

Tonks and Charlie stood on the other side of the one-way observational shield, which bisected the interrogation room. The lower level of the Egyptian Ministry of Magic wasn't a dungeon, but it certainly held a stark, institutional feel. The bare, green-grey walls and the stainless steel table stripped the room of colour and life. The even, bright lighting charm washed out Ron's freckles and made him look pasty and wax-like. Ron stared at nothing in particular, glassy-eyed and unfocused. Charlie wanted to step through the shield, to take Ron by the shoulders, to shake all the answers from his unmoving lips, to flay the truth from his very skin.

He took a step forward, and Tonks put a hand on his arm. "Wait," she said, staring through the shield. An Egyptian Auror—he could be Kingsley's Arabic twin he was so large and muscled and bald—sat opposite Ron.

He spoke calmly, although Charlie sensed that he was keeping annoyance on a tight leash. "Have you taken any potion to give you immunity to Veritaserum?"

No answer. Ron didn't move a muscle. You'd think he was dead but for the slightest rise and fall of his chest.

"Where did you get the injury on your arm from?" the Auror asked. "Was that where you cut yourself on the Hebridean Black?"

That was the first time that Charlie noticed Ron's right arm was bandaged to the elbow. Where the evidence had been an intangible to him, it was now leaden and real. Charlie's saliva tasted metallic and bitter, and his stomach heaved.

"It was a nasty cut," Tonks murmured to him. "He tried to Heal it himself, but he made a mess of it. There was blood on a set of robes we found in the rubbish—his and the dragon's. And there was also dragon blood on the tail twigs of his Firebolt."

"Did you place the Imperius Curse upon the Scottish dragon keeper?" the Auror asked, cycling through a long list of questions that'd been asked before, many times.

Ron lifted his thumb to his mouth, chewed on his thumbnail and spat a little wedge of fingernail and saliva onto the table. He didn't show any sign that he was listening to the Auror, let alone aware of his presence.

"He's been like this all morning." Tonks put her hand against the shield, and the Auror pushed his chair back with a nerve-grating scrape. He stepped through the shield. He didn't seem surprised to see Charlie and gave him a curt nod.

"Chaz, this is Auror Ali El-Sayed Al-Moselhi. Al, this is Charlie Weasley," Tonks said.

Al nodded again. "You were never here, Charlie," he said evenly, and then he walked out of the room. The door swung closed behind him, and Charlie heard the lock engage loudly in the silence.

Tonks gave him a weak smile and gestured to the shield. "He's all yours."

* * *

What Charlie _wanted_ to do was to rage at his brother.

_You killed a dragon! How could you do this to Mum? How could you do this to _me_? Why? Why? Why?_

But the moment he'd stepped through the shield, he'd felt a sense of preternatural calm settle over him. Raging at Ron had never worked. In fact, all the Weasley children were immune to raging, inoculated against it through years of grimly ignoring their mother's temper. Charlie loved his mother, but she was prone to panicking, and she had never seemed to handle having so many children to wrangle. They'd all overwhelmed her, and the wars had drawn her thin.

What he did do was pull the spare chair closer, so that he sat with his knees and legs perpendicular to Ron's. Ron didn't glance in his direction. Charlie rested his chin on interlinked fingers—a parody of a prayer that this would all resolve itself. "I feel kind of… Bilius," he said quietly.

Ron didn't move a muscle. There wasn't even a twitch of a smile for the years-old joke about Ron's unfortunate second name. A slick sheen of sweat covered Ron's face, and perspiration beaded on his upper lip. Although he looked at ease and unperturbed, there was something different about his eyes, like they'd iced over and all the colour had been leached out of them. Had they been like that when he'd stayed with Charlie in Bucharest?

"Look," Charlie said, "Mum is frantic… I'm—" There were no words to explain the sense of betrayal Charlie felt. Ron _knew_ how he felt about dragons, that he'd devoted his _entire_ life to their study and care, that he'd missed countless family functions watching over hatchlings, that he was _heartbroken_ to be faced with the evidence that his _brother_, his _own flesh and blood_, had killed a dragon.

"Why?" he asked, leaning closer to Ron. "_What_ is going on? What did you get yourself into?" Charlie felt his throat closing in, so that it became harder to breathe without his eyes tearing up. "You know better. Dad and Percy and Harry… they'd all be _ashamed_ of you." Charlie swallowed hard. "_I'm_ ashamed of you."

And what Charlie really meant to say was that he was ashamed of himself for not noticing that something had been seriously wrong with his younger brother.

Ron kept staring ahead blankly like the world held no interest for him. Charlie reached out to shake his shoulder. "Snap out of it, Ron." A drop of sweat fell off the end of Ron's long, narrow nose, leaving a teardrop stain of stubbornness on his grimy t-shirt, but otherwise he didn't react to Charlie's touch.

Charlie leaned closer still, so that he was almost nose-to-nose with his brother. He stared into the unseeing eyes. Ron still didn't focus on him. Charlie brought his hand up to grab the back of Ron's neck, to force him to look up. As his fingertips brushed the damp skin beneath Ron's heavy ginger hair, a jolt of white-hot pain burned him, and he jerked his hand away, staring at his fingers wide-eyed.

"What the fuck?" Little blisters had already started to form on the pads of his fingers. "Tonks!" he called, but she was already stepping through the shield.

She put a hand on Ron's head, to tilt it forward, and then she gingerly parted his long, thick hair to bare the nape of his neck. "Oh, my God," she murmured softly.

Charlie peered over her shoulder, his heart racing with alarm, and he gasped. "Bloody hell," he said incredulously.

There, tattooed on the back of Ron's neck, was an intricate, strange hieroglyphic-like script. In the interrogation room light, the dully-glowing charm etched into Ron's skin looked like hellfire itself.

* * *

Author's Note: Thank you to Gelsey for proof-reading.


	12. Le Serpent Rouge

_Deliver me out of the mire, and do not let me sink._—Le Serpent Rouge, translated by David Wood.

* * *

Every Christmas, Molly Weasley would haul the vase out of the attic, and her children would grimace and bemoan the fact that the ghoul hadn't broken it between festive seasons. But the hideous ceramic thing with its lopsided baby Jesus in the manger and the shepherds and the Christmas star always took pride of place next to the fireplace for the month of December.

"My favourite present ever," Molly would say as she arranged a profusion of plastic poinsettia and holly and tinsel in the vase. "It was _so_ thoughtful of Gideon and Fabian. There, now, that's lovely..."

Secretly, Charlie thought that his uncles had forgotten to buy Christmas presents that year and had stopped off at the nearest Muggle shop on the way to the Burrow.

So, when Ron, chasing Fred and George because they'd stolen his biscuit, had tripped and knocked the vase flying one year, all the Weasley children had stopped in their holiday pursuits to stare at the broken shards with horror.

Except Bill.

Bill had barely glanced up from his NEWTs revision as he'd pointed his wand at the shattered vase. "_Reparo_," he'd murmured with the quiet assurance of a gifted Charms wizard.

He didn't even watch that ugly vase knit itself together again, all the broken pieces flying up from the ground in an awkward ballet. He'd just _known_ that it would fix itself perfectly, with not even a gossamer thin crack to remind them that it'd ever been broken in the first place.

If only it were that easy, now.

* * *

"This is just… insidious," Bill muttered.

Tonks leaned in next to him to take another photograph of the glowing mark, and she set the Polaroid on the table next to the rest. Even in the still, Muggle images, the mark seemed to glow with menace and sentience. She marked the white strip at the bottom of each photograph with a wand-stamp, following the Aurory's evidence-collecting protocol.

Ron lay face-down on the stainless-steel table, his head pillowed on Charlie's jacket. Tonks had put him under a Sedation Spell after he'd lashed out at them wildly, trying desperately to hide the red tattoo on his neck, bellowing obscenities at them like a wounded minotaur. Bill had arrived at the Ministry shortly afterwards, red in the face and huffing from taking the stairs rather than waiting for the lift.

"It's a permanent Imperius Curse, then?" Tonks asked. Gently, she pushed a damp lock of hair out of Ron's face. Her face was broad and motherly, now, and her eyes were brown and huge with sympathy.

Bill nodded curtly, and his gaze dropped to one of the broad leather wrist-cuffs he wore, which covered the tattoos around his wrists. "Always a Dark application for everything," he said, sounding disgusted.

Although Voldemort, the Dark Lord, was gone, that didn't mean that Dark wizards didn't still skulk in the Dark alleys peddling Dark Arts and misery. And it didn't mean that money and power was no longer a lure to the Dark. The dangers were just unknown, now, and that made them more sinister to Charlie's mind.

_I don't think I want tattoos like that anymore,_ thought Charlie, rubbing the back of his neck tiredly. Since the father had been killed, he'd had little uninterrupted sleep, and he could feel the fatigue seeping into his muscles and bones. It was cold down at the bottom level of the Ministry, too, and he crossed his arms over his chest, tucking his fingertips into his armpits.

"Do you know what the writing is?" Charlie asked Bill. His brother was the hieroglyphics and runes expert, having used his knowledge to break into many a treasure tomb for Gringotts.

Bill shrugged. "I think it's Old Nubian," he said, "but I'd have to make sure."

Charlie frowned in confusion but Tonks pre-empted his question. "What?"

"The Nubians are the ancestors of modern Northern Sudanese people," Bill explained. "They were one of Ancient Egypt's biggest rivals—there were a lot of battles over that part of the Nile Valley. A lot of Nubian prisoners were taken as slaves, and livestock was stolen from them by the Egyptians, especially during the Third and Fourth Dynasties. But not much of their history is recorded, except in Egyptian accounts."

Charlie sighed. "That was all five-thousand years ago," he said, grimacing. He didn't think it had much to do with what they were facing right now. "I guess the big question is: Can you lift the curse?"

Bill was tracing one of the long scars on his face, thinking hard. The Lumos Charm flickered ominously for a moment before evening out again. "There's no easy way... not with traditional curse-breaking methods," he said eventually. His gaze flickered up to Charlie's. "We'd have to… cut it out." Bill wore a leather belt with a number of pouches on it. He opened one and withdrew a tiny glass vial. Dittany.

Charlie hesitated for a moment, gazing down at his youngest brother—he looked so quiet and vulnerable, and Charlie's heart ached for him—and then he held out his hand. "You cut, I'll Heal," he said with stoic resignation.

* * *

"Ron," Charlie murmured. "Wake up, mate…"

The sliver of skin had been bagged as evidence, the oily pool of blood Banished, and then Tonks had lifted the Sedation Spell. The back of Ron's neck was now shiny with pink, new skin, but it was free of Dark magic, and Ron was groaning softly as he pulled through a haze of sleep and Imperius-related confusion.

Ron's long, sun-bleached eyelashes fluttered, and he opened blue eyes. Charlie let out a breath of relief, and he realised that Bill and Tonks had done the same behind him. "Hey, Ronnie… wake up, mate," he repeated.

"Chaz?"

"Yeah. And Bill and Tonks, too." He could feel them standing close behind him—his brother at one shoulder, his best friend at his other.

Ron swallowed and blinked slowly a few times, and then he struggled to sit up. Charlie helped Ron until he was sitting on the edge of the table, his long legs swinging over the side of it. Charlie wanted to give him time to adjust, time to get his bearings, but questions were crowding in his throat, itching on his tongue, buzzing in his brain. Bill and Tonks backed off a bit, giving Ron some breathing room. Charlie could see that Tonks was struggling to keep her questions in check, too: she bounced in place on the balls of her feet, and she'd seemed to have morphed her mouth shut.

"You were under the Imperius Curse," Charlie said, moving to sit on the table next to Ron.

Ron nodded, but he didn't lift his head to meet anybody's gaze. His long hair shielded most of his face, but Charlie could tell that he was crying from the way his shoulders shook slightly, the way his breath hitched as he breathed hard. Charlie put his arm around his brother, and for a moment Ron's shoulders were stiff and tense, and Charlie thought he was going to shrug away, but then he collapsed into Charlie's side, sobbing in earnest, clutching fistfuls of Charlie's t-shirt.

Slick tears and snot wet Charlie's neck where Ron burrowed his face against his skin, but Charlie just murmured soothingly against Ron's hair, speaking softly like he would to a frightened hatchling. "Sorry," Charlie said, over and over. "Sorry." His own voice was thick with emotion, and when he gazed up at Bill, his vision was blurred with tears. Bill moved to Ron's other side, rubbing comforting circles on Ron's back until, eventually, the wracking sobs subsided. Tonks, looking a little uncomfortable at the open display of male Weasley emotion, hovered off to the side, and eventually she handed Ron a hanky and a glass of water, then patted his knee awkwardly.

Ron blew his nose loudly and gulped the water down like he'd been thirsty for years. Charlie squeezed his shoulder and gave him a manful pat. Ron still didn't look up, and he sniffed loudly.

Bill fiddled with the clasp on one of his wrist-cuffs. "Who did this to you?" he asked softly, and he was unable to keep the steel from his voice, the stiff promise that he'd like to tear the offender apart for what they'd done to their family.

Ron shook his head, making a strangled noise like a dying Kneazle. His hands gripped the edge of the table tightly, his veins standing out, straining blue against his almost-translucent skin.

"You _need_ to tell us, Ron," Tonks urged, kneeling in front of him and putting her hand on his knee. "We need to know what they're planning—"

"I… can't…" Ron rasped. Now it sounded like he was hacking up a hairball, and Charlie patted his back. What the hell was wrong with him?

"Course you can, mate. We _have_ to know," Tonks insisted.

A wet, gargling sound escaped from Ron, and something wet dripped from his face onto his trousers… it leached into the material, leaving a large, round, red stain.

Blood. He was bleeding!

"Stop!" Charlie said urgently, his voice strained and panicked. "Stop, Ron! It's OK, you don't have to!"

"Chaz—" Tonks started to protest, but his grim expression and uncompromising gaze cut her off.

Slowly, the tight line of Ron's shoulders relaxed, and two more drops of blood fell from his face. Ron lifted his face, then. Blood gleamed wetly on his skin, leaking from his nose, dribbling from the corners of his mouth and oozing from his eyes like demonic tears.

"What the fuck?" Tonks muttered, backing away from Ron quickly, rising to her feet. "But that means—"

"Wait," Bill interrupted, "and I'll check." He pulled his wand from its holster and took Ron's arm. He began to murmur a complicated incantation under his breath with Tonks hovering at his shoulder like a mother Hippogriff.

Charlie felt utterly confused and horrified. He'd never seen somebody bleed from their eyes like that before; it looked like something out of one of those horrible Muggle movies, the ones his father would sometimes sneak off to watch at the cinema.

What the hell was wrong with his brother? They'd removed the curse, hadn't they?

Ron coughed, and then out spat a wad of blood and phlegm into the hanky. He started to cry softly again, his tears mingling with the blood. Charlie patted Ron's back while he watched Bill work, a frown of puzzlement still creasing his forehead. After a minute or so, a ghostly, fiery snake encircled Ron's arm and wrist, glowing malevolently. "What—?"

"Fuck," said Tonks succinctly.

Bill dropped his wand and the apparition disappeared. "Unbreakable trumps anything I've got," he said with a hollow note of defeat in his voice. "Even if it was done under Imperius."

Charlie gaped. "So… you're saying that somebody put the Imperius tattoo on him and then made him take an Unbreakable Vow?"

"Yup," said Tonks. She made a frustrated sound and cracked her knuckles. "I'm going up to MLE to get his release papers signed; there's nothing else he can do for us, and under the circumstances he's not culpable for any of the dragon killings. Al will help me with all the red-tape." She stomped over to the shield and disappeared through it.

Charlie was still struggling to wrap his mind around the concept of what had happened to Ron. Something didn't add up, and his sense of magical logic was put off-balance. "But... but… that's… How can an Unbreakable Vow still work under Imperius?" Charlie demanded.

Bill began to Tergeo the blood from Ron's face. "It's a matter of which came first, Chaz… the Unbreakable Vow has been around for centuries and centuries." He Conjured another hanky for Ron. "The Unforgivables were only developed as weapons of war just before the Statutes were drawn up, when the Muggles were burning magic folk and the Order of the Inquisition from Rome was hunting us."

"So?" Charlie asked stubbornly, getting up from the table and pulling his jacket on again.

Bill straightened up and patted Ron on the shoulder. "There you go, champ," he said quietly. They hadn't used that nickname for Ron since he'd been about six. Bill left his hand on Ron's shoulder. "So… old magic trumps new magic. Magical coercion was never a factor when the Unbreakable Vow was developed. It was a spell of _honour_ among men. Mage to Mage. A sanctified vow. Some even postulate that it was developed by Merlin himself."

_And Dark Lord hopefuls are never honourable,_ Charlie thought, feeling defeated. And here again, the essence of magic had been corrupted and twisted to Dark means.

Tonks stepped into the room again. "You guys can take him home, now. I'll sort things out with Romania and Britain," she said with a soft sigh. Charlie wondered briefly how much trouble she was going to be in for circumventing standard protocol.

Bill helped Ron to stand, and he led him through the shield.

"Thanks, mate." Charlie smiled faintly at Tonks. "And now we'd just better hope that Hermione comes through for us," he muttered quietly to her. "It's the only lead we've got left."


	13. Breathe

Charlie Weasley hovered at the foot of the stairs in the Burrow, watching his mother and his youngest brother disappear into a room on the first story. The tidal wave of noise and activity and high emotion had finally abated, leaving Charlie with a throbbing headache and a gnawing hunger that roiled in his stomach. He realised that, in the rush of the morning's panic, he'd never eaten breakfast at Luna's. He eyed the liquor cabinet that beckoned from the corner of the Burrow's living room but then just smiled wryly and sighed; it was barely past noon. _Although the current crisis might just about justify it,_ he thought.

But then he remembered Sirius Black and Remus Lupin during the year the Order had used Grimmauld Place as their headquarters. Almost every time he'd dropped by to see Bill or to leave a report on the state of European affairs, the two of them would be slouched in ratty armchairs, halfway into a bottle of firewhisky.

"Sharlie," Sirius would slur, beckoning him with an imperious gesture. "Howshabout a drink wish your mates, eh?"

And when Charlie would refuse politely, saying he had to get back to work, Sirius would get that nasty 'Black' sneer on his face. "Ah, yesh, work," he'd say with a malicious, dark glint in his eyes. "Leasht you're being ushful." And he'd toast Charlie with his half-full glass, then swallow it down with one gulp and a grimace. "Sheers, _mate_."

And Remus would sink lower into the cushions of his chair because he'd known that there were things Albus had asked him to do. More than likely, Sirius had guilted him into staying for a drink… and then another… and another. In the years after, it had been a long, slow climb out of the bottle for Remus Lupin. Even now, Charlie sometimes caught him eyeing the liquor cabinet with a wistful and contemplative glint in his eye.

Charlie glanced at the Weasley clock, then closed his eyes a second later with a grimace. The two missing hands had sent a pang of grief spear lancing straight through him, throbbing in his heart in time to his headache's beat. The pain of their loss would never go away, but it had faded over time, dampened by day-to-day minutiae and routine. That was probably why _this_ moment of loss felt so acute; it had been an unexpected, sharp surprise… It'd snuck up on him in the dark like a murderous shadow.

He walked over to examine the hands on the clock.

_Charlie Weasley: Brooding_, it said. He rolled his eyes.

_Molly Weasley: Mothering_.

The strident echoes of his mother's relief and anger were still ringing in his mind, her heaving sobs against his chest still imprinted on his skin. "You're such a good boy, Charlie. You find who did this," she'd said tearfully before retreating upstairs, leaving the burden of responsibility weighing heavily in his arms.

_Ronald Weasley: Lost_.

But then, Ron's hand had been pointing there since Harry had died, and the Weasley clock didn't have designations like 'Under Imperius' or 'Off killing a dragon'.

_Fred Weasley, George Weasley, Bill Weasley, Draco Malfoy: Working_.

Bill sat in the corner on an old and faded armchair with a heavy book—in some script that Charlie couldn't decipher—on his lap, and he was surrounded by several more piled on the floor around him. He was frowning so hard his parallel scars seemed to merge into a broad scar of worry on his forehead.

Charlie still found the inclusion of Draco's hand on the clock bemusing. He wasn't here at the moment; he was likely at his office, tending to his business concerns. Charlie wasn't entirely sure what his business was all about, but he'd heard Draco and Bill muttering about hedging Galleons and price fluctuations a while ago. It had all been a bit Arithmantic for Charlie, to be honest.

The twins were probably at the shop, selling smiles for a living.

_If only it were that easy,_ Charlie thought with a sigh.

But _Ginevra Malfoy: Cooking_ was here, and she was in the kitchen with _Fleur Weasley: Cooking_ and Luna Lovegood.

Somehow, the fact that Luna had been at the Burrow when he and Bill had arrived with Ron hadn't been a shock to Charlie. During the last few days, she seemed to have become inexorably entwined with his life thread on Fate's loom. He hadn't spoken to her yet; in the midst of all the chaos she'd merely smiled—a brief ray of sunshine through the gloom of his day—at him and then made herself helpful. She seemed comfortable with his family, like she'd spent many hours in the kitchen here. In fact, she looked more at home than he was, now. He scowled and turned away from the clock, feeling an unwelcome sense of guilt. How many times over the years had he owled home to say he couldn't make Christmas or a birthday party? Why did he suddenly feel like a stranger in his childhood home?

Whenever Charlie had been angry or sulking as a child, he'd invariably ended up at the bottom of the garden, as far from the house as he could go without leaving the Burrow's boundary wards.

So it was out of old habit that Charlie escaped to the garden, breathing icy clouds and self-loathing into the frigid winter's day. The Weasley garden was usually an overgrowth of green and vibrant with life, but now it was an icicle garden and deadly quiet. The ground crunched like glass under his feet, and as Charlie made his way deeper into the garden, he spotted little wisps of smoke rising from gnome holes, where the persistent invaders were likely toasting their gnarled toes in front of tiny fires. It made him smile sadly to remember the wars waged against the little buggers and how they'd always come back no matter how far you hexed them.

The back fence bordered on a small stream—iced over now—which was shadowed by an enormous tree. Charlie had built a tree house up there a long time ago, his own private fort. As he climbed the rickety and ice-slick ladder, he was surprised to find that his old wards were still intact—brittle, yes, but still guarding his privacy tenuously—and he shook his head with wry amusement as he dropped the Security Spell. The wooden walls were swollen with damp and rotting in places, now, and there was an old swallow's nest in one corner, but his sanctuary was intact for the most part. A Warming Charm made sitting on the floor more comfortable, and Charlie settled in to have a good, long sulk before lunch was ready.

But not five minutes later, a tentative knock from next to the entry hole in the floor disrupted his brooding.

"Charlie?" Luna! His heart juddered for a moment, and not from shock. "Can I come up?"

"Yeah… er… sure," he answered, suddenly feeling as awkward as he had on his very first Yule Ball night when he'd been contemplating asking Deirdre Jones to take a walk in the rose garden with him (and _everybody_ knew what that had meant).

Like she'd been climbing trees for years, Luna hauled herself up into the tree house and settled next to him. It had once been a large room—for an eight-year-old—but now it was just big enough to accommodate the two of them. Her knee brushed his, and his sulking was forgotten, replaced by a jittery confusion. He rubbed the fingers of his left hand against his thumb in a nervous gesture, remembering how he'd held her hand just last night, like they'd been old friends or new lovers. It had been an intimacy beyond their new acquaintance, and he felt strange, now, unsure of what to say to her. And then he remembered her half-finished painting, and that just intensified his panic.

As always, though, Luna spoke first. "I went home for lunch and I found the marbles all over the floor—"

_Oh, shit,_ he thought, remembering how he and Tonks had left Luna's flat. "I'm so so—"

She shook her head and put her hand on his knee. "Don't worry about that," she said calmly. "I was just worried about you, so I Floo'd Ginny to find out if she knew if you were all right." She squeezed his knee and then removed her hand to gesture towards the house. "Your Mum was upset, so I came with Ginny to keep her company." She twisted the ring on her thumb, and she looked incredibly sad for a moment. "I'm sorry about Ron; I was wrong to think he was just being—"

This time it was Charlie who interrupted. "I thought so, too," he said, shaking his head.

Luna nodded. "It's nobody's fault," she said softly, as if she'd sensed his searing sense of guilt.

Charlie grimaced slightly, but he nodded.

"I hope you find who did it." He was surprised to hear steel in her voice, but then he remembered Ron and Ginny talking about Luna and how she'd fought like a Valkyrie during the war. It was easy to forget that, looking at her. In emerald robes with her sheet of ash-blonde hair, she looked like an elf from the Muggle fantasy stories. His fingertips twitched; he was tempted to brush her hair aside to check for pointed ears… a stupid moment of imagining. He sighed inwardly; Luna's brand of whimsy seemed to be rubbing off on him. That, or it was lack of sleep.

"I hope so, too," he said grimly.

She reached over to take his hand again. "I know you will."

He tried to break the tension he felt by joking. "A Trelawney minion, then?"

Luna merely smiled serenely and shook her head. "Divination isn't very accurate, you know… there are some things that are far more concrete than crystal gazing," she said knowingly.

"Oh?" he couldn't help but ask.

Her smile widened, and Charlie felt his heart lurch again—what was it about her that made him feel like a Billywig had stung him? "Faith," she said softly, "and belief in somebody."

_Oh…_ He really had no answer for her, clever or otherwise. The air seemed to thicken around them, and he suddenly found it hard to breathe. He felt like he was falling—maybe down the rabbit hole, maybe in love. He didn't know. He didn't even know her at all, not the small parts that made up a person.

"Uh," he managed to stutter. "Uh… this…" He glanced down at their hands, which rested on his knee. He didn't know _what_ he wanted to say, really. His ears and the back of his neck were hot, now, and he could barely raise his eyes to meet her calm, silvery grey ones. His headache was long gone, replaced with a tightening sense that reality was shifting under his very body.

For a moment, Luna's smile was slightly sympathetic, like she could see clearly and he was lost in the fog. She shrugged. "It is what it is, Charlie. And it will be what it will be. Just live. And trust. And feel."

Charlie's forehead wrinkled as he frowned. "Ah…" He bit his lip as he struggled to think. "It's not always that easy…"

"Of course it is," she said simply, and then she leant close to him so that her shoulder brushed his, and she whispered softly so that her breath huffed against the spiral of his ear: "Do you like me, Charlie?"

And his face went so red the flush made his freckles disappear. He swallowed. She was so close and he couldn't _think_ and he couldn't see the consequences of any decision he made because she was so close and his heart was beating in his ears and making it so damn hard to _think_!

"Don't think," she breathed. She smelled like almond and vanilla today.

His shoulder felt warm against hers, and there was a tight warmth low in his belly, a light tingling of arousal in his balls. _Just… ungh…_ "Yes," he murmured, and his voice sounded like it was far, far away, like it came from a stranger's mouth.

"Good," she said. "I like you, too…" She squeezed his hand. "So, really, it's easy, isn't it?"

There was a certain elegance to her logic, his befuzzled mind had to admit. _Never hold back, never let somebody slip away again. You promised._ His subconscious had stirred to life, prodding him in the small of his back. _She's not… normal,_ he argued with himself. _No, she's not… she's extraordinary_, he countered.

It had taken Charlie Weasley six months to work up the courage to lose his virginity, six months of arguing with the little voice in his mind. He'd almost missed the Romanian Ministry's Halloween Ball last year because he'd struggled to pick a costume out. He analysed everything. He liked order. He liked to think about and imagine how things would turn out. He liked to be in control. He liked to know where he was going. He was a Seeker; he liked to take his time to survey the lay of the land, only diving when it was a sure bet that he'd catch the Snitch.

He had a lot of 'what ifs', though.

Charlie took a deep breath, swallowed, and then turned to face Luna. A finger's breadth separated their noses. "Yeah," he said finally, his voice low and husky. And so he leapt off the proverbial cliff without a broom as he closed the small gap between them to kiss her. Her lips were cold and strange against his for a moment, and her murmur of approval was a vibration against his lower lip. And then he felt the draw of her, the tingling of chemistry between them, the pull of her that made him want to crush her to his chest.

Although Luna smelled like vanilla, she tasted like peppermint and chocolate as their mouths opened to deepen the kiss and her tongue slid against his. He couldn't hear properly anymore; the beating of his heart was joined by a loud buzzing, now, and he started to feel slightly dizzy from sensory overload. Her skin was warm where he touched her jaw, her hair soft where his hand cupped her head. And his skin was on fire, now, the Warming Charm far too hot all of a sudden.

And then a sound intruded from far away, muffled like it was from another world. "Charlie! Luna! Lunch ees ready!"

Charlie ignored his sister-in-law determinedly, sucking and nibbling on Luna's lip. The cold of winter and the grimness of the last few days were out there, and he wasn't ready to give up this newfound pleasure yet.

"Charlie Weasley!" Ginny called. "Stop snogging my friend and get your arse up to the house for lunch!"

It was then that Charlie remembered dazedly—as his lips parted from Luna's and she laughed a soft, silvery laugh—that Fred and George had added another designation on the family clock as a joke one year: Snogging.

Author's Note: Thank you to Gelsey for proof-reading.


	14. Food for Thought

Lunch was served in Molly Weasley's newly-added conservatory because, by now, there were too many people at the Burrow for them all to fit comfortably around the old kitchen table. Even so, Charlie was still squeezed elbow-to-elbow between Bill and Fred. The entire family had been invited to an impromptu reunion, and half a dozen conversations flicked back and forth across the table.

On one side of him, his twin brothers expanded their business empire.

"—need to get started on testing the new Skiving range by next week."

"Did you ask Angelina to advertise for vic—volunteers in the _Prophet_, yet?"

On his other side, Bill and Draco were discussing the state of the wizarding financial sector and Gringotts politics, _again_.

"I hate doing yearly taxes for Blaise. I swear to Merlin, why do the goblins have to have such bloody complicated tax laws?" Draco said in his almost-petulant voice.

Bill chuckled, accidentally nudging Charlie as he cut into his chop. "Because they can…"

Draco rolled his eyes and shrugged nonchalantly. "Anyway, I've told him a million times to invest in Muggle shares as well—diversify his portfolio, you know—but he won't hear a word of it."

Neville Longbottom sat next to Draco—he wasn't family, but he'd become close to Molly in the last few years and had apparently helped her to bring her conservatory to life recently. As such, he was considered—much like Harry Potter had been—adopted family. He wasn't talking to anybody, and he was feeding pieces of his steak to some ugly, spiky plant behind him on the sly. In Charlie's experience he'd usually talk animatedly with Molly about Flutterby bushes and tiger daffodils, but she was still upstairs with Ron, now, although she'd made a brief appearance to greet her extended family.

"He's not up for company," she'd said to them all. Charlie agreed with his mother; there would invariably be a hundred invasive questions flung at Ron—ones that he couldn't answer because he was still under the Unbreakable Vow of silence on the matter of the dragon killings and his involvement with them. "I'll just take a tray up for him. A nice, home-cooked meal will be just the ticket."

The men around him were talking so loudly that Charlie couldn't hear much of the conversation from down the other end of the table, but his eyes barely strayed from watching Luna's smile and the way her hands would sketch in the air as she spoke to Ginny and Fleur, like animated and graceful birds. He could still taste her on his tongue, feel the residual tingle of her on his lips, and the quiet and cold walk—holding her hand but saying nothing as his head spun with embarrassment and a million implications—back to the house hadn't quite made his hot flush recede. And the knowing looks and smart comments he'd fielded when they'd walked in the door had brought the blood rushing to his face again.

As Luna glanced up from her food in his direction, her grey eyes caught his, and she smiled so beautifully at him that he felt himself flush again as his heart thudded and a wash of adrenaline buzzed in his mind. Charlie's mouth fell open slightly, and he managed to miss his plate by a mile, prodding the surface of the wooden table with his fork. After a few intense seconds of being locked in a hot gaze, she lowered her eyelashes coyly and turned back to talking with Ginny.

A wisp of conversation drifted through the buzz, then. Ginny asking: "So… Charlie, eh?"

Draco, ever observant and having completed his treatise on the inadequacies of the wizarding economy, smirked at him. "You and Lovegood, eh?" he drawled slyly. The blond man's lips twitched with amusement, and he tucked his shoulder-length hair behind his ears. "Well, well."

Charlie scowled at Draco and then at Ginny for good measure. They really were a well-suited pair. He concentrated on his food again, ignoring the satisfied smirk on Draco's face. Malfoy did so love to prod and poke until he got an adequate reaction. Bill knew better than to comment, and the twins—who were usually the instigators of any teasing attack—were too busy plotting something, their auburn heads bowed close over a scroll of parchment.

Truth was he wasn't ready to talk to other people about the nascent relationship that was weaving itself between Luna and he; he could barely define it himself. It was still gossamer new and intangible, like smoke on the wind. And he was too lost in the clouds of newness and excitement to clearly see where, if any place, it was going.

When his aggravation had subsided somewhat, and Draco had engaged Neville in a discussion about investment potential in herbology companies, Charlie glanced up again, his gaze magnetically drawn to Luna. Somehow, she felt his gaze on her again, and she glanced up from her plate, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. He shifted slightly on his chair, and this time a tight sense of discomfort banded around his heart as he realized he was thinking very intimate thoughts at the family meal. Thank Merlin none of them were adept at Legilimency, he thought as he dropped his eyes to find his plate already more than half empty. When had he eaten all that food? Where was his mind today? In an absolute flutter or lost to Wonderland, probably. _I am in a world of trouble,_ he thought wryly, prodding his mashed potatoes with his fork.

Bill intruded into his reverie with a quite murmur. "It _was_ Old Nubian, by the way."

Charlie's mind ground like a rusty engine as it shifted back to the puzzle of who and why and just what the hell was going on with the dragon killings.

"Does that give us anything to close in on, something that Tonks can look into today?" he said just as quietly.

Bill shook his head. "It's a text that was used millennia ago. Although a lot of Black magic—" As if Dark magic was not bad enough, there had to be something infinitely sinister out there, too. "—originated in Africa, those old spell books have mostly been destroyed or scattered around the world. They're bartered on the black market, although you'd never see any of them displayed in a Dark alley's shop windows. It's all done by private trade… kept very hush-hush. Anyway, maybe the book's been in a family library for years and years, bought hundreds of years ago. You'd never be able to tell."

_Every Diagon has its Knockturn_, Charlie thought grimly. He hated the Dark alleys, where illegal dragon goods were often sold… the haven of poachers. He tapped his fork against a piece of broccoli. "So… what you're saying is that we have no way in hell of knowing who'd have an ancient Nubian spellbook at their disposal?"

Bill shook his head, his lips twisted into a sour expression.

_Well. Shit._ Charlie sighed and put his fork down. So, the marking on the back of Ron's neck was a proverbial dead end. Or rather, a warren of Dark dealings and shady trading.

"Have you or Tonks managed to theorise about what they'd need that potion for?" Bill asked. Now that they knew an Unbreakable Vow was involved in the conspiracy, there had to be at least _two_ other people involved: a Vow-Taker and a Bonder. And who knew how many others?

Charlie rubbed his forehead and shook his head guiltily. Life had been a blur since he'd discovered the Legend of Dracontias. And after snogging Luna in his childhood hideaway, Charlie's mind had been in a completely different kind of haze: the blurry fog of first intimacy… that place where you could lose yourself in another person, where you didn't really _want_ to be found from. "Ah… nope," he said, grimacing. He couldn't speak for Tonks, although he had the feeling she was bogged down in Ministry protocol and explaining herself at the moment.

"Most poisonous potions can be countered with a bezoar," Bill said contemplatively, fiddling idly with the fine, silver hoop in his ear.

Charlie nodded. "Yup… I was thinking it'd have to be a plant or magifauna, myself."

They both glanced up as the plant behind Neville belched loudly, emitting a foul smell of rotting meat. Ginny pinched her nose shut. "Nebille!" she complained, casting a Freshening Charm to clear the air.

"No, no," Luna said, shaking her head reprovingly at Ginny, "the scent of the Mouldering Marigold is good for repelling indigestion."

"Yeah," called George, "because it makes you sick enough not to _want_ to eat anything!"

Everybody laughed—trust one of the twins to lighten the day's mood—and Neville ducked his head low into his shoulders, looking abashed.

Charlie was more fondly amused by Luna's odd statement than anything, and he smiled at her, to be rewarded with a smile that held sunshine and promise. His heart jumped again, and the tight, lovely tension of anticipation pulled at his nerves. Soon enough, the murmur of conversation resumed, and Charlie turned back to Bill, prompting him to continue.

Bill rubbed his temple, then picked up the thread of the conversation. "So… magifauna, huh? Any nasty, poisonous creatures you can think of off the top of your head?" Bill asked, leaning forward to grab the jug of pumpkin juice. Charlie shook his head when Bill tipped it in his direction in a silent query.

Charlie puffed out his cheeks as he considered, and then blew out a frustrated stream of air. _Right. Poisonous creatures. Hmmm._ "It's probably easier to get phoenix tears than to kill a dragon… so not a Basilisk." Charlie had dealt with dragons exclusively for so many years that it was difficult to dredge up the knowledge, now. He loved dragons, but the truth was that a magizoologist had a much wider range of knowledge than a keeper. "Runespoors have deadly venom." The large, three-headed snake's right head—the Critic—had highly venomous fangs. Commonly associated with Dark wizards, it was a pretty good guess for a start.

Charlie chewed on his thumbnail thoughtfully. "Acromantula venom is fatal, too," he mused, then gave an involuntary shudder as he tried not to picture the giant man-eating spiders too vividly. Like Ron, Charlie had arachnophobia, although to a slightly lesser degree. The source of their revulsion for spiders was easy to explain: Fred and George had gone through a stage when they'd terrorised their siblings by catching spiders and chasing one or another brother—with one or more spiders clutched in grubby fists—around the Burrow (and the garden after Molly had thrown them outdoors). He just thanked Merlin he'd never had much to do with Acromantula, aside from having to utilise their venom occasionally. Although Acromantula venom was a Class A Non-Tradeable Material, the reserves often had special dispensation from the Ministries to procure it; it was good for stripping and dissolving dragon flesh from the hides of dragons who'd died naturally.

Charlie wrinkled his nose. "And I suppose Manticores are deadly poisonous, too, although I can't see why anybody would want to go near one." He shuddered. Manticores were vicious man-eaters from Asia. Intelligent and sentient, the predator had a human-like head with three rows of razor-sharp teeth, a lion's body, and the tail of a scorpion. They were extremely efficient hunters that ate their victims, bones, clothes and all, and there were tales of travellers who'd simply vanished off the face of the earth, presumed to have been devoured by manticores. Charlie had only ever seen pictures of them in Care of Magical Creatures class, and he wasn't keen to get close to one, ever.

Bill stopped pouring pumpkin juice into his glass and gave Charlie a quizzical look. "Er… goblins use them to guard some of their tombs and treasures, you know."

Charlie gaped. "I do know they were originally bred by the Greeks, and they are a good example of why the Ban on Experimental Breeding was instituted, but I didn't know that they were still used to guard things, no."

"Same with Runespoors and Acromantula, actually." Bill shrugged noncommittally—he wasn't allowed to divulge goblin secrets in great detail—and he started to get a contemplative look on his face, like he was puzzling through some sequence of logic.

At that moment, a tiny house-elf appeared and started to clear the lunch plates away. Charlie stared at it, raising his eyebrows in sharp surprise. Since when did his mother have a house-elf, and where had to come from? Next to him, Fred merely lifted his elbow and continued to pore over the document he and George were working on with a muttered, "Ta, Lert."

A low chuckle from across the table caught his attention, and Charlie glanced up to see Draco with a smug smile plastered across his face. "Christmas present for your Mum," he said, smirking at Charlie.

Charlie supposed Draco had thought it an appropriate gift, but it was a little creepy and strange, Charlie mused with no little bemusement.

Next to him, Bill hmm'd softly, and Charlie turned with raised eyebrows. "What?"

Bill prodded his chiselled jaw for a moment, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "What if—"

"Hello?" came a muffled call from the living room. "Anybody home?" In unison, all the people around the table turned towards the door, some craning their necks. "It's Hermione… can we come through?"

Charlie was quickest off his chair, bounding towards the Floo connection. He'd almost forgotten that Hermione was due to contact him about the constituents of the Sedative Potion that had been used to drug the dragons. She must have news! Behind him he heard Draco drawl, "I hope she's bringing Severus with her; Merlin knows a Slytherin rescue from the sea of Gryffs would be welcome," and then he heard the resulting groans and snorts that resulted from his comment.

Charlie lowered the wards, and Hermione and Severus—he had to remember to call him that, no matter how odd it felt, Charlie told himself—spun through and stepped out of the fireplace. Charlie was very confused for a moment. _Does my _whole_ family know about them?_ he wondered. _Apparently so._ Snape looked quite at home as he brushed his robes off nonchalantly. _How did they get Mum to not pitch a fit?_ he marvelled.

"Charlie," Snape said evenly with a courteous nod.

"Severus," he replied just as evenly.

Snape glanced up at the Weasley clock. "Ah, good, Draco is here," he drawled, and he turned on his heel deftly, then headed in the direction of the conservatory—obviously having decided that he'd leave the technical details to his lover—as Bill came into the living room.

Hermione levered herself down into an armchair. "Urgh," she said, pulling a face as she patted her pregnant belly. "Kent hates travelling by Floo."

Charlie raised his eyebrows as he sat down on the couch opposite her. "Kent?"

"Severus and I are still undergoing negotiations. He thinks Kent is a poncy name… and I detest _his_ suggestions. I mean, who would seriously call their child Walter or Hugo?" She rolled her eyes.

Bill snorted as he sat down next to Charlie. "Better than Kent," he murmured just loudly enough to earn a scowl from Hermione.

Her lips unpruned from their moue of disapproval, and she glanced towards the fireplace. "Tonks should be here any moment." She sighed. "I tried to Floo call you this morning, but I suppose you guys were at the Egyptian Ministry by then; Tonks told me what happened when I got hold of her a little while ago." Her face softened as a haunting sadness shadowed her dark eyes. "How is he?" she asked softly, turning her head to glance at the stairs.

Charlie shrugged, looking pensive. "He's sleeping, I think. He's been through a lot—we _need_ to find who did this or he'll suffer with having to carefully choose his words for the rest of his life."

Hermione nodded, biting her lip with concern as she pulled a scroll of parchment from her bag. "Anything I can do to help," she told the brothers earnestly. "It's… the least I can do, even if he hates me." Charlie thought he saw her jaw tremble for a moment before she pulled her face into a tight expression again, controlling her emotions. He wondered, just for a moment, if that was a learned trait from Snape, and then emerald flames leapt high in the fireplace, and it disgorged Tonks a few moments later.

Her face was flat and blank, her hair almost skin-coloured in its neutrality. Charlie had seen this before when she'd been carefully controlling her emotions and temper behind a carefully neutral appearance. The moment she stepped out of the fireplace, she exploded with colour, her violet hair standing up on end with aggravation.

"Arghhhh!" Her shriek of annoyance was accompanied by a tempestuous foot stamp. Charlie covered his mouth to hide his quirked expression of fond amusement. "I hate politicians! Dawlish and Petrescue _both_ want the cases solved yesterday, and they're pissed that I haven't got any solid leads. They're both bloody threatening to put the ICW's Mages onto the case and me onto some crappy job like fucking Diagon beat patrol," she snarled.

"And Al! All Al can do is smile and ask if I'd consider extraditing Lilith-fucking-Zabini to Cairo because he's _sure_ she poisoned El-Fayed!" She threw her hands up into the air. "_Of course_ she did, but he'll _never_ prove it, and when I tell Dawlish that we need to do something about that bitch before she ruins international relations, he sits there behind his desk and shrugs. 'Britain can't afford to alienate Zabini; he's rich and important to the wizarding economy'." She mimicked Dawlish's hesitant and ponderous speech intonations perfectly, and from the corner of his eye, Charlie saw Bill pressing his lips together.

She flopped into the empty armchair next to Hermione and folded her arms tightly across her chest as her hair slowly flattened. "Dawlish can't spare any other Aurors; they're closing in on some drug and potions racket in Knockturn. So, my team and I—all three of us—have only got _three_ days before they call in the Mages." The Mages were the international security wizards who worked for the International Confederation of Wizards. Highly secretive and deadly, the Mages wouldn't hesitate to use any means necessary to capture the perpetrators—perhaps even including taking Ron into custody and making him talk before he invariably died.

Charlie's expression sobered and he sat up straighter. "_We've_ got three days, then," he emphasised. He was neck-deep in this case, now, and he wasn't about to leave Tonks to drown in the quicksand of it.

"Agreed," said Bill, grim determination in his tone.

Hermione nodded. "As I said—I'll do whatever I can to help, too."

_Vigilantes of the Order unite,_ Charlie thought with pride. _And the phoenix flag flies again._

She unrolled the parchment and spread it out on the coffee table, weighting it down with several of the pewter and brass ornaments that were arranged in little groups on the side tables. "Let me show you what I've found out about that potion…"


	15. In the Dark

"_Let me show you what I've found out about that potion…" said Hermione._

"Amen. We need all the new evidence we can get," murmured Tonks, looking mousy and fretful, having faded to a worried shade of brown.

Bill and Charlie nodded in agreement but remained intently silent, worried frowns drawing their red eyebrows together. Charlie hoped that it wouldn't lead them into another warren of clues, that they'd find a clear path to the perpetrators before it was too late for Ron. Before the Mages came.

"Whoever made the Sedative Potion was either very clever or very stupid," Hermione said, tracing a fingertip down the list of constituents she'd analysed. "The potion contained just about every commonly-used herbal sedative known to herbologists and potioneers. So, I'm guessing they either researched the potion very carefully, or else they just chucked it all together in a cauldron and hoped for the best. I'm not sure which is worse, though." She ticked the constituents off on her fingers: "Valerian root, lavender, passionflower, opium, camomile, hops, catnip, ashwaganda, kava, mandrake, cannabis, lemon balm…"

Charlie had dropped Potions after fifth-year because he hadn't enjoyed it very much. No, he was lying—he'd been _horrible_ at it, too. He rubbed his temples and squinted at Hermione through the confusing mind blur of potions ingredients. "So, what does that all mean, exactly?" he asked.

Hermione didn't look patronising or condescending at all—Charlie really liked that about her—as she smiled at him. "Well, normally that'd be bad news for the investigation because _none_ of those items are Non-Tradeable or even particularly rare, _and_ they're used in a very wide range of commonplace potions, too."

Tonks leaned forward eagerly, her eyes sparking yellow with interest. "But?" she said urgently, picking up on the proviso in Hermione's statement.

Hermione pulled another roll of parchment from her bag. "I can't guarantee it's going to yield a solid lead because this crime has a very international flavour, and not all apothecaries are required to keep sales logs like those in Britain, yeah?"

Tonks looked sour as she nodded, gesturing that Hermione should get on with it.

"The sheer number of constituents might just actually be in our favour." Hermione smiled smugly. "I happen to have gained access to the sales logs from all of the British apothecaries." She put her index finger to her lips for a brief moment: Don't ask; I won't tell.

She unrolled the parchment. It was at least six feet long, and Charlie started to groan mentally—there had to be _hundreds_ of purchases on there, and that was only Britain!

But Hermione seemed to be one step ahead of him, again. "It was a simple matter of cross-referencing purchases of the items we're interesting in during the last month—a lot of those herbs only have a few weeks' shelf-life, so I thought I'd start there." She unravelled the new roll of parchment, this one much shorter. "This," she said, tapping the list with her index finger, "is a list of people who bought _all_ of those herbs during the last month in Britain. I thought it might be a good place for us to start, and then if none of the leads come up as good, we could try it with a different country." She shrugged.

_Makes damn good sense to me._ Charlie snagged the list from the table. "Maybe we can eliminate some of these people as unlikely," he said, skimming over the names, and then he snorted with wry amusement. "For example… _You're_ on the list, Hermione."

Hermione nodded. "Well, that makes sense; I buy a lot of potions ingredients to test the new patent applications."

Charlie pulled his wand from its holster and inscribed an untidy line through Hermione's name. "And Severus Snape can come off, too."

Hermione nodded again. "Research is a black hole for Galleons, so Severus makes a lot of household remedies for the apothecaries; his insomnia and sedative potions are very popular."

_So _that's_ what Snape has been up to lately._ It made a certain amount of sense to Charlie, anyway. He returned to the top of the list. "Heath Bell?"

Tonks chimed in, now, just as Hermione opened her mouth. "St Mungo's potioneer," Tonks said, shaking her head as if to negate the idea that he'd be part of the conspiracy. "And if Connor Carstairs or Pippa Thompson are on the list, scratch them off, too—they work with him in the potions lab there, making potions for the hospital."

Charlie grunted his assent, crossing all three names off the list, along with Poppy Pomfrey and Gaynor Fradlowe—the Potions teacher—from Hogwarts. "Wendy Carson?"

"Unspeakable," Tonks said, then shrugged at his querying look. "I have _no_ idea—don't ask because they certainly won't ever tell," she said, sounding disgusted. From what he'd heard, though, Charlie knew that the Unspeakables got away with a _lot_ of experimental magic. And the Aurors and the Unspeakables didn't exactly rub along with any amount of geniality.

"Tell me about it," Hermione chimed in. "That lot _does_ have a potions lab down there, although I've never had the _privilege_ of seeing any patents out of them. And I'm sure they've developed a whack of potions that'll never see the light of day. But… I'd probably cross them off the list. They still need high-level approval for their projects, and I doubt that the Minister would condone torture of a British citizen."

Tonks leaned over to help Charlie with crossing off three more names—all Unspeakables from the British Ministry. "Oh, and you can probably scratch Zane Lovell, too," she said. "He's a freelance potioneer, like Severus."

Eventually, they were left with a very short list of British citizens who'd purchased herbs with sedative properties and had no good reason to have done so: Kieran Brady, Afton Smith and Lilith Zabini.

Tonks snorted. "Well, I can bloody guess what Lilith has been doing with her herbs," she said darkly, obviously still put out by her argument over the Black Widow with Al and Dawlish. She crossed her arms and scowled. "I can't place the other two names."

Hermione bounced in her armchair, and Charlie thought she was going to put up her hand for a moment. "Kieran Brady owns Red Dawn in Knockturn Alley," she said, her lips tightening with disapproval. "I can _just guess_ at what sort of potions he's been making," she said, shaking her head.

Tonks smacked her forehead. "Of course! He's that bloody creepy vampire, isn't he?" She shuddered. "Ugh. He makes my skin crawl." She glanced at Charlie and Bill, who were giving her confused looks. Charlie didn't much like vampires—there were several who haunted the shadows in Bucharest—but he'd never heard of them owning nightclubs and brewing potions before.

"He's a wizard-turned-vamp," she explained. "And his nightclub is rife with _drugs_."

"Ahhhh," said Charlie, finally comprehending. "And this Smith bloke?" _If he's related to Zach Smith then I bet he's an arsehole, too._

A synchronous wave of shrugs. "Might be a fake identity," Tonks said eventually. "I'd have to check the records at the MLE to see if he's got a record."

Hermione rubbed her stomach with a soft sigh, and then heaved herself up out of the chair. She rolled her eyes. "Bathroom. _Again._ I'll be back in a few…"

Charlie, Bill and Tonks sat quietly for a moment as Hermione made her way upstairs. Faint chatter and laughter drifted through from the conservatory, and Lert moved past them on her way to the kitchen, a legion of plates and cutlery floating along behind her. Neville came through a few moments later, carrying a plate of pudding.

"Er… for your Mum," he explained unnecessarily to Charlie.

Charlie nodded absently and contemplated that Hermione's lead wasn't exactly the concrete clue he'd been hoping for, the solid and tangible arrow of truth that would make this whole nightmare end.

Next to him, Bill was tapping his finger against his lips again. "I was thinking, earlier," he said, almost startling Charlie.

"What?" Charlie glanced at the stairs in almost guilty fashion before putting a booted foot on the coffee table.

Bill shrugged and spread his hands, palms upward. "Most of the venomous magifauna we were talking about earlier are used to guard Gringotts' tombs, yeah?"

"Mmhmm…" Tonks stopped daydreaming and turned to listen to Bill, gesturing impatiently for him to 'spit it out'.

"What if they want to break into a Gringotts tomb to steal something?" Bill said contemplatively. "Stupid and ill-conceived as that might be," he said confidently.

Tonks grimaced, her hair a soft, dubious shade of avocado. "That's an awfully roundabout way of doing it, Billy-boy," she said. "Wouldn't it be easier to, I dunno, kidnap a goblin?"

Bill shot her an annoyed glance and scowled. "That's _not_ as easy as it—"

"I brought you guys some pudding," Luna said, interrupting what was sure to have ended up in a headlock or hexing, as she gave Charlie what he was fast considering to be 'his special smile'. She set a tray down on the coffee table, bowls of treacle tart swimming in custard. She sat down next to him on the couch and took his hand.

"Thanks," said Bill, and Charlie could see that he was battling—and failing miserably at that—to hide his smirk. Tonks' expression was carefully neutral again as she leaned forward to help herself to a bowl of pudding.

"Did you find anything that will help Ronald?" Luna asked. Charlie couldn't concentrate properly; she was stroking his palm with her thumb idly, and the sensation dived into warm arousal, making him excruciatingly uncomfortable.

"Mmhmm," Tonks mumbled around a large mouthful of pudding.

"Oh, I'm so glad," Luna said, beaming at her.

Charlie was sure he heard something odd—a soft, grating sound—come from her pocket, but then he was distracted as the Floo flared aquamarine, signalling a letter delivery. Four identical envelopes shot out of the fireplace, one each to Bill, Tonks and himself. The fourth landed on Hermione's empty chair. Charlie frowned as he—rather unwillingly—let go of Luna's hand to open his. She put her hand on his thigh instead, in a touch that he felt overly aware of, like all his nerve-endings were concentrating on that spot of his body, and it almost felt like her hand was burning his skin through his trousers. He could barely hear himself think as he opened the envelope. The parchment was heavy and expensive, shot through with filaments of gold, and it matched the heavy card that Charlie pulled out of it.

"It looks like a wedding invitation," Tonks said, waving an identical one before opening it.

"Not that I know Theodore Nott very well," Bill said, raising his eyebrows sceptically.

Indeed, the intricate gold calligraphy on Charlie's invitation was for the same person's wedding. "Maybe they made a mistake," he said dubiously. "I have no clue who this Theodore bloke is…"

"Oh," said Luna brightly. "He was a friend of Draco's, I think—"

"And his _father_ was a _Death Eater_," Tonks said with sudden realisation, her hair turning fire engine red with alarm. "I don't think—"

But it was too late for her to warn them to put the cards down because just at that moment, Charlie felt a hard tug behind his navel, and he found himself drawn into the maelstrom of Portkey travel, bumping shoulder-to-shoulder with Luna, whose hand was now magically stuck to his thigh. He landed hard, on his arse, little stones biting hard into his palms. It was very dark around him; he blinked furiously as he tried to focus on some, _any_ flicker of light. But there was no point, in the end. He'd landed in a space that was darker than night and although he couldn't see a damn thing, Charlie couldn't help but feel closed in and claustrophobic, like there was a dark and malevolent monster prowling around them in the fabric of the air. He drew his wand. _Lumos… Lumos! Lumos!_ His wand remained stubbornly unresponsive, and the darkness pressed in even more tightly around him, pressing against his temples and making his head hurt.

"Luna?" His voice echoed and bounced in hollow notes off a distant, unseen wall.

"Where are we?" she asked, and he felt her hand clutch at his arm; that made him feel a little more anchored, less alone.

"Fuck knows," came Tonks' answer out of the black, a little way off to his left. "Argh. _Lumos_, dammit, _Lumos_," she snarled angrily.

"Mine isn't working, either," Bill said, sounding disgusted. "There must be a Dampening Charm on this place."

There was a loud clatter, the sound of something falling over and bouncing on the stone floor, once, twice. Charlie jumped, and Luna's hand tightened reflexively on his bicep. His pulse throbbed behind his ears, now, and the air felt thick and noxious as he dragged it into his lungs in shallow, panicky pants. He wasn't used to feeling trapped, closed in, feeling like his body was tensed for fighting. He'd never been in the thick of the war, and he was ashamed that he was so afraid, now. That his voice wavered when he spoke, that his throat was almost closed with fear. _I thought I was brave, being a dragon keeper, but_ this _type of thing needs a different kind of brave,"_ he thought for a moment.

"Ouch! What the hell?" Tonks exclaimed. "It's a _bloody_ chair!"

Charlie felt—with some sixth, unknown sense just on his periphery of awareness—that somebody aside from Luna was standing close to him. He turned around wildly, his eyes stretched wide in the dark. "It must have Portkeyed here instead of Hermione; her letter landed on the chair," Bill said from just in front of him, putting a hand on Charlie's shoulder. "Easy, Chaz," he murmured, sensing Charlie's unease.

"Dammit," said Bill, sounding frustrated. "I should have _sensed_ it was a Portkey."

Tonks growled something that sounded like, "Ditto."

Charlie felt Luna fumbling in her robes next to him, her elbow jostling his arm, and then there was a rasping sound, accompanied by a blinding flare of light. His eyes narrowed to slits, the bright light searing dancing specks of lights across his vision for a moment.

"Muggle matches," she said, smiling slightly in the sulphurous, flickering light. "I carry them to light incense with."

Charlie could have kissed her—again—right then and there for being such a wonderfully whimsical and odd witch.

She held the match aloft, but its wan light didn't penetrate to the edges of the darkness. Charlie glanced down—the floor was covered with a fine layer of yellowish sand. Tonks joined them, taking advantage of the light to navigate around his mother's old armchair. Her eyes were large and round, like an owl's, her mouth pursed into a tight beak of stress. Pity she didn't have the night vision that went with eyes like that, he thought. A few seconds later, the match flickered and died, plunging them into darkness again. "Now what?" he murmured. _The matches won't last for long. What then?_

"We stick together and find the nearest wall first," Bill said, grim concern tightening his voice.

"I'm afraid that won't be possible," a new voice intruded. Male. Well-modulated. Calm and utterly devoid of emotion. An edge of smugness.

This time it was Charlie who reached for Luna's hand, gripped it tightly in his. He felt her take a step closer to him, pressing against his body.

Charlie raised his—useless by all accounts—wand. _Work, damn you! _Stupefy. Lumos! But no magic spilled from his wand to save them, and he felt Bill step backwards so that they were back-to-back, huddled into a tight, outwards-facing circle. He strained to listen to the black, to pick up a trace of footsteps, maybe the telltale intake of breath. Cold dread seeped into his heart like Dementor frost when all he heard was deadly silence through his quick and nervous heartbeat. And then, just when he'd feared that he'd gone deaf, there was a dry, rustling sound all around them, like they were stuck in a whirlwind or a Floo connection. _Whoosh. Whoosh…_

He heard Bill and Tonks shifting on their feet, trying to pinpoint the source of the noise. But it was all around them, now, and getting closer.

"Charlie…?" Luna's voice shook with fear. She let go of his hand, and she lit another match. In the yellow light, the blue-green grass glittered and swirled around them, like Christmas tinsel, and Charlie's eyes widened.

"Don't—" _Breathe_.

* * *

Author's Note: Thank you to Gelsey for proof-reading.


	16. Heritage

There was pain everywhere.

His heavy head—sharp spikes of agony splintering his leaden thoughts—lolled forward on his neck. His arms and shoulders hurt _so_ much, pulled behind his body in an unnatural twist. He tried to extricate himself from the uncomfortable position. _Arms… won't work…_ As he shifted slightly, something hard and unforgiving bit into his wrists, pinning his arms behind him. _Tied up… against a wall…_

He grimaced and pain shot from his brows through his brain like an arrow. Thirst burned in his throat. He tried to swallow, but his tongue was thick and swollen and useless. Every breath was thick. The air felt dense, like he was breathing water, and it smelled musty, like it'd been shut away in a dark place for a very long time. He'd had hangovers before, but this was _so_ much worse; all the essence had been wrung from his body, leaving a sore, dry husk.

He tried to open his eyes; his eyelids were so heavy it seemed impossible. Finally, he was able to slit them open just a fraction, filtering his vision through eyelashes and a blurred haze. It wasn't dark anymore; blue light danced across his retinas for a moment. Then he cracked his eyes open a bit more, flexing his fingers until the bindings dug mercilessly into his wrists again. A blue sphere of soft light hung in the air above him, but he couldn't see into the black beyond the semicircle of light it cast. His legs were stretched out in front of him, and the cold from the stone floor leached into his thighs and backside. He was sitting on a little, sharp stone, too, and it added to his discomfort.

Charlie wasn't alone. Bill was on his right, and Luna sat to his left, with Tonks sprawled next to her… all similarly tied up. Bill grunted, shifting restlessly against his restraints. Luna whimpered softly, rising slowly through the mists of unconsciousness. Tonks was awake, too, cursing with enough fluency to make a dragon keeper embarrassed.

"Can you get loose?" Bill whispered.

Charlie tried to speak, but his tongue wouldn't obey him; it sat leaden and mute in his mouth. He swallowed painfully, dryly. "Uh-ungh," he managed to slur eventually.

"Ouch," Luna whined softly next to him.

Charlie turned his head to look at her, and his heart wrenched. Her lips and eyelids were slightly swollen, like she'd had some kind of allergic reaction to the sedative that they'd breathed in. There was a big, dirty mark across her cheek, but in the light it looked like a bruise. _It's my fault she's here,_ he thought suddenly, the most lucid thought he'd had since waking. _I got her involved in all of this… _Guilt overwhelmed his fear momentarily, but it was flooded by alarm when he heard footsteps—slow and deliberate—in the dark.

Knee-high dragon hide boots and masculine legs clad in black trousers resolved from the dark near Tonks as the person stepped closer to them.

"Come a bit closer, fucker, and I'll make you sorry you ever—" Tonks cried out in pain as his boot kicked at her bent leg, catching her ankle sharply with the hard toe of his boot.

Bill and Charlie both strained at their bindings, infuriated, hissing angry threats.

"Don't bother; you won't get loose." The man stepped closer, and Charlie could see that he held a length of rainbow-coloured rope in one hand. Charlie recognised it with a dull sense of dismay. Tightening Twine: Fred and George had invented it many years ago when the Order had required something to tie angry Death Eaters up with. The MLE still used it; it was easier to use and hardier than Muggle-style steel handcuffs. "Quite ingenious, your brothers." The voice was smug and superior, with a hint of amusement.

"Theodore Nott, I presume?" Bill growled.

"Hardly," the man drawled. The sphere of light intensified and enlarged, and the man's features slid from vague shadows into a sneering, arrogant—and familiar, Charlie was startled to realise—face.

"Smith," Tonks spat, and her tone held contempt and disbelief and dismay. Her hair was red and angry, her face Morphed into a twist of anger.

The Auror from the Hebrides. The one who had fought Tonks for jurisdiction of the crime scene. _To hide evidence?_ Charlie wondered. He didn't look like he was under Imperius. In fact, he looked like he was enjoying himself very much… too much. He smirked as his ice-blue eyes surveyed his line of prisoners. There was a twist of malevolent satisfaction in his expression, a hint of sadistic pleasure that sent a chill down Charlie's spine.

"I never did like you very much, Zach," Luna said sadly.

"Lovegood. You're not supposed to be here," he said coldly, winding the rope around his hand in a way that made Charlie very nervous. "Best you keep your crazy mouth shut; you're _expendable_."

Charlie growled, low in his throat, a surge of protective ire rising. "If you touch one—"

Smith laughed contemptuously, a harsh bark. "Then you'll _what? Glare_ me to death?" He unwound the rope, letting it dangle from his fingertips. "You shouldn't be here, either, but then you had to stick your nose into things, didn't you? You're no Auror, you know…"

"And neither are you!" Tonks yelled. "Traitor!"

Smith's fist tightened, and for a moment Charlie thought he was going surge forward to punch Tonks. But his face just went bright red, a vein pulsing at his neck, anger surging through his ugly, harsh expression. "Fuck off, Nymphette," he ground out. "I've wanted to put you in your place for a long time, you _overbearing bitch_, and now you're _right_ where you belong. I should make you grovel at—"

Luna's quiet voice cut into his tirade, a soft presence of calm next to Charlie. "Why are you doing this, Zach?"

Bill shifted next to him, still tugging at his bindings despite the futility of it.

Smith whipped around to glare at Luna. "I _told_ you to shut the fuck up, _Looney_. Do you _want_ to die?"

Instead of cringing against Charlie, she tilted her chin upward and stared at him with calm, wide silver eyes. "It's but the next grand adventure," she said, quasi quoting Albus Dumbledore. If Charlie hadn't already been mostly in love with her before, he'd have fallen headlong in that moment. Now, he was filled with a swelling sense of wonder. _Merlin, she's amazing._

His wonder turned to alarm quickly as Smith whipped out his wand, incensed beyond reason by Luna's quiet and confident answer. She didn't flinch, though, as his wand pointed straight at her nose, shaking because Smith was so angry. Violet sparks spat from it, fizzing against her skin.

"Stop taunting the animals, Zach," a deep, smooth voice said, coming from somewhere in the dark.

Slowly, Smith's wand lowered, and he turned on his heel to face his co-conspirator, kicking a spray of yellow sand onto Charlie's and Luna's legs. Charlie let out a long, slow, relieved breath. He realised he was shaking, so very afraid of losing Luna. He'd never forgive himself if she died now.

The new man's form stepped into the cerulean light: a tall, dark-skinned man with sharp features and long, almond eyes. To Charlie's surprise, he wore Muggle clothing: a tailored suit under a charcoal, calf-length coat. Charlie didn't recognise him. He looked young, too… probably foreign or from after Charlie's time at Hogwarts.

But Luna drew in a breath of recognition. "I never liked you, either, Blaise," she said.

"My heart bleeds," Blaise said, sounding bored, gazing at her with a haughty expression from where he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Smith.

_Blaise?_ The name sounded familiar to Charlie, like he'd heard it recently, but he couldn't place it.

"Zabini," Tonks said, sounding disgusted.

Blaise Zabini smiled at her: a cold smile that didn't touch his dark, hard eyes. And then he gave Tonks a mocking, half-bow, a smirk twisting his full lips. "Nymphadora," he said in a mock cordial tone. "For an Auror you aren't very bright, are you?"

"Bastard!" Bill's and Charlie's twin expressions of hatred were almost synchronous, and Zabini swivelled his head towards them. "Ah. Another set of Weasley dunces who don't have a clue. Upset that we killed your precious dragons, are you?" He pouted at Charlie.

Charlie managed to launch himself forward, almost scrambling onto his knees before Zabini pressed a foot to his chest, effectively pinning him back against the wall. "Move again, Weasley, and I'll have Zach here AK you."

Smith had an anticipatory gleam in his eyes that made Charlie very sure that he'd _enjoy_ that, very much.

"You're going to do that anyway," Bill sneered.

Blaise pressed his foot hard against Charlie's sternum for a moment before stepping back again. He shrugged elegantly. "Actually, not," he drawled. "A Memory Charm—a thorough one that might make you forget who you are—should suffice."

"Joy," Tonks sneered. "You _won't_ get away with this."

"Ah, but I think you'll find that we will," a low, amused feminine voice intruded. The woman's heels clicked against the stone floor as she approached. "I've done much worse before, after all… the MLE is entirely incompetent, I've found."

When the woman came into view, it was easy to guess that she and Zabini were related. In fact, Charlie recognised her face from the _Prophet's_ society pages. Her skin was dark and smooth like bitter chocolate, her features slanted and sharply beautiful. She looked like a polished ebony sculpture of an African Queen. _The Black Widow._ Charlie felt a dark sense of dread thrill through his senses. She was incredibly beautiful, but her aura was deadly, and her mere presence made the hairs on his arms stand up.

"Lilith," Tonks said flatly.

"Did you _really_ kill all of your husbands?" Luna asked, and Charlie wanted to hold his hand over her mouth this time because he was sure Luna was going to be in serious trouble with that… that _predator_ here, now.

Lilith Zabini ignored Tonks and Luna, however, and turned to her son, kissing the air above his cheek. "Well done, darling," she murmured. Her gaze flitted to Smith. "You, too, Zacharias."

Smith inclined his head. "I do my best, ma'am."

Lilith's lips pulled into an amused smile, and she patted her son's arm. "Ahh. You picked such a gentleman, darling." Then she turned around, her long, old-fashioned robes swirling about her ankles. "You," she said, pointing an elegant finger at Bill, "are coming with me. If you do not take me into Imhotep's tomb safely, then I will tell Zacharias to kill your brother and your little friends."

"There's _nothing_ in that tomb that would be of much interest to a rich woman like you," Bill said, scowling at her so that he looked incredibly fierce, his scars twisting into a map of hate. "I'm sure there are easier ways to get your talons on more gold… marry another rich man…"

Bill had a point, Charlie thought. Now that he knew _who_ was behind this and _why_ the dragons had been killed, he still couldn't figure out _what_ they wanted. Unless Bill was lying, protecting some valuable treasure down there for Gringotts?

"Ahh, but I beg to differ, William," she said, shaking her head. "The wizard Imhotep helped many pharaohs—Djoser and Sneferu principally—to fight against the Nubians, to steal their land and to enslave _my_ people."

Charlie remembered Bill saying something about Ron's curse tattoo being Ancient Nubian script, and that mystery clicked into place. It made sense now, at least.

"And your point is? That all happened hundreds, thousands, of years ago," Tonks said, snorting.

Lilith straightened to her full height, the menacing shadows of Smith and Blaise flanking her shoulders. "You have _no_ idea, you half-blood ingrate, what you are speaking of. You may come from Black blood, but even their line is nothing, _nothing_, compared to who _I_ am." She enunciated her words sharply, like daggers, and there was a world of pride and madness in them.

"Why don't you tell us, then?" Luna asked, actually sounding interested. Charlie groaned inwardly. _Not now, Luna,_ he thought desperately, trying to move to nudge her shoulder.

Lilith's lip rose in a sneer. "_Lovegood_," she said dismissively. "So watered down with Muggle blood your father has gone crazy, yes?" She laughed derisively. "You will not be fit even for the most menial of tasks when I rule the wizarding world."

_What. The. Hell?_ Charlie thought with numb disbelief.

"I thought your family didn't support Voldemort and all his pure-blood fanaticism," Tonks said, narrowing her eyes.

A disdainful expression pulled at Lilith's beautiful features. "Of course not… Tom Riddle was a psychopathic, half-blooded maniac. The House of Zabini bows and scrapes to _nobody_." She rolled her large, dark eyes. "Look what happened to the Malfoys. Idiots." She shook her head and flicked her fingers dismissively. "No. No. I would _never_ have worn his filthy mark. His rhetoric about blood-purity was nothing but meaningless propaganda. He knew nothing of wizarding _royalty_."

_Oh, shit,_ Charlie thought. They had all walked into something—a conspiracy and a plot—much bigger than any of them had imagined.

But Lilith Zabini hadn't finished her treatise on wizarding royalty and pure-blood perfection yet. "_My_ ancestor was the Queen of Nubia. The daughter of Kushite, the _Great King_ of Nubia." She snarled with anger, the sound low and ominous, like a caged tiger. "Imhotep was the one who killed him and left him to rot in the Egyptian sun, stealing all the wealth and legacy of Nubia for himself. A _great_ treasure was lost when Imhotep was buried here, and now you and Gringotts have _finally_ found it." Her smile was disturbingly triumphant. "My family will ascend to greatness once more with the Eye of Re held firmly in hand."

Bill actually laughed, then. "The Eye of Re is only a _legend_. There's nothing like that in Imhotep's tomb!"

"We. Shall. See," she snarled at him. She turned to Blaise. "Bring him." She turned to Smith. "Watch the prisoners, Zacharias… I will send a message if they are to be executed," she said coldly.

Blaise—broader and taller than Bill—hauled him to his feet and dragged him off into the darkness. Lilith Zabini followed a short distance behind them. Charlie watched his brother fade into the black.

"No!" Tonks rasped, her hair turning a horrified shade of orange. But there was nothing she could do but watch them disappear into the depths of Imhotep's tomb.

Smith idly righted the armchair that had Portkeyed from the Burrow. He slouched there indolently, twirling his wand, watching them in a predatory fashion.

Now _what?_ Charlie thought bleakly.

* * *

Zacharias Smith grew weary of watching their every breath very quickly. His sharp-focused gaze grew bored, and he started to examine his fingernails, swinging his leg over the arm of the chair.

Tonks was very quiet, her eyebrows drawn together as she watched Smith's every move. _Is she planning something?_ he wondered.

Luna had been murmuring to herself for ages, and Smith had given up on telling her to shut up. And he hadn't used a Silencing Charm yet, as threatened. Charlie couldn't hear what she was saying at all; perhaps it was a self-soothing babble. He couldn't fault her… they all needed their coping mechanism. He wasn't doing all that well himself. He just couldn't think of a way out of this mess.

_Unless the goblins know there are intruders here… But wouldn't they have come to help us already, then? Shit. Maybe Bill can… Argh. Two against one, and Bill was unarmed. His tattoos! Are they only defensive, though?_

Luna shifted next to him, and he turned to look at her. She wasn't lost in her murmur, now. She was looking straight at him. Her murmur became coherent, a soft whisper. "OK, now, Grumbumble," she whispered in the same tone so that Smith wasn't alerted. Maybe not so coherent, then. He sighed softly.

She shifted again, and something moved against his hip. His eyebrows flew up. _What is she_ doing?

He glanced up at Smith; he was doing the crossword in the _Prophet_, now.

There was a soft grunting from the squirming something, and Charlie watched in surprise as a garden gnome burrowed its way out of Luna's robe pocket.

"He's from your garden," she mumbled. The little gnome scuttled around her hip and started to gnaw at the rope that tied her hands together. "Gnomes are good luck," she murmured, then went back to the incoherent babble.

Charlie saw that Tonks was watching Luna, now, instead of Smith, and that there was an equally incredulous look on her face.

Luna continued to hum and mumble as the gnome chewed through her bindings, freeing her hands. Charlie felt his heart rate elevate, torn between soaring hope and horrified concern.

_Don't get caught,_ he pleaded, his eyes locked with hers. She smiled serenely at him as the gnome climbed back into her pocket. She flexed her wrists slowly.

Charlie's gaze flicked to Smith. Still oblivious. _Some Auror,_ he thought acidly. _But now what? Our wands are gone! She makes one move towards the bastard and…_

But it was then that Charlie noticed that Luna's hair was still pinned into place by several odd things: a phoenix feather, silver clips, onyx chopsticks and—buried and wrapped and hidden from plain sight in her silvery hair—her wand! Smith had obviously missed that during his search!

Luna eased her arm up behind her back—wincing because her arms were likely sore from being restrained that way for so long—until her fingertips reached the bottom, hidden bit of her wand. Slowly, still murmuring softly, she eased the wand from her hair.

Tonks kept her hair beige and her expression tightly neutral, but she couldn't help the excited flickering of yellow excitement now and then. Charlie _glared_ at her, and she pressed her lips together tightly.

_Don't drop it, don't drop it,_ Charlie thought as he watched Luna shift her wand through her hand, slowly, carefully. If it fell, now, it would make a dreadful clatter. Finally—Charlie felt his lungs complain as he held his breath—her fist closed around the wand's handle.

Luna's smile was calm and collected as she twisted her wrist and pointed the wand at Smith. Her murmur never ceased: "M is for Mooncalf, N is for Niffler," she sang softly. But then she skipped a few letters. "S is for _Stupefy_."

The jet of crimson light hit Smith square in his face and he slumped forward, the newspaper sliding off his lap onto the floor.

And just like that, they were free.

"Holy fuck, I love you!" Tonks crowed, leaning sideways to bump shoulders with Luna.

Charlie could only agree.

* * *

Author's Note: Thank you to Gelsey for proof-reading.


	17. Imhotep's Tomb

"Check his pockets," Tonks called as Luna untied her bindings.

Charlie moved to where Smith had fallen with one arm twisted underneath him awkwardly. The dark that prowled at the periphery of the light made Charlie nervous; he couldn't see beyond the little sphere of blue light, and his muscles were tensed for any noise, any small trace of movement. He had little sense of how big the room was—only that his footsteps echoed distantly in the black.

"On it," he returned, and he could hear Tonks whining about her sore wrists as he—with a grimace of disgust and distaste for the traitorous Auror—quickly searched though the deep pockets in the man's cloak.

He found his wand and Tonks', and two others—Smith's and Bill's—along with two glass vials and a folded piece of parchment. It felt _so good_ to have his wand back in his hand, and it fit with old familiarity, tingling faintly in a welcome frisson of recognition. He felt his heart ease its frantic and nervous hammering; at least he was armed, now.

First, he wanted to see where they were, to rid himself of the notion that something big and dangerous was watching him, waiting to pounce. "_Lumos Maximus_," he murmured, and a bright, golden sphere of light oozed from his wand, shimmering with intensity as it rose high... up, up to the ceiling of the room. His eyes widened as the cavernous space was illuminated. _Where are we?_

"Wow," he heard Luna murmur from behind him.

Tonks gave an appreciative whistle, taking her wand from him with a grateful look. "Well..." For once, she was lost for words, searching in vain for an appropriate profanity to describe the sheer size of the place.

They stood against one wall of an enormous space. Columns of stone set at regular intervals along the walls rose up to the ceiling, which was at least three stories high. Hieroglyphics and Egyptian pictograms—faded with age—were etched into the stone walls. Charlie didn't know much about Egyptian mythology and Gods, but he recognised the jackal-headed Anubis on one of them from his previous visit to Egypt.

Two large doorways—one to their left, which the Zabinis had taken Bill into; another to their right, probably the exit. Tonks was already moving towards the right-hand side doorway—in a low, prowling crouch, her wand raised.

Charlie felt torn in that moment: his whole body _yearned_ towards the left, where his brother had gone. He wanted to run deeper into the tomb, to AK Lilith Zabini so hard that every bone in her body would break. It was odd to feel this urge for violence, this vengeful surge of hatred. She and her son and the sack of shit sprawled at his feet had _hurt_ his family. And more than that... they were up to something ominous. From the sound of it, it couldn't have good consequences for the wizarding world. It was probably wiser to call for help, though. _But what if we're too late?_ he thought desperately.

Luna intruded into his torn moment, then: "We should tie him up."

Charlie nodded grimly, briefly giving her another hug before bending to tie Smith's arms tightly behind his back. When he groaned softly, Luna swiftly and unmercifully Stunned him again with icy calm. Charlie was starting to understand that there was a _lot_ more to Luna than mist and whimsy. Where she'd shown moments of lucid logic before, she was now showing steel and backbone. _Talk about giving off a misleading aura._

Luna worked on tying Smith's ankles together, and just as Charlie was adding a piece of Tightening Twine to link the ankle and wrist restraints—Smith was trussed up like a pig, now, he thought with satisfaction—Tonks called out to them from the exit door. "The door is blocked, and I can't get it open. And you should come and see what I've found, too..."

Charlie and Luna left Smith lying in an uncomfortable-looking position, his cheek pressed to the sandy stone floor so that every huffed breath sent a little puff of sand up into the air. Charlie's eyebrows rose sharply when he saw that Tonks was standing next to an emerald heap of twisted coils: a snake! No, a dead, three-headed snake. "Runespoor," he muttered.

Tonks sighed. "OK. I'm all for going after Bill," she said, kicking a booted foot at one of the hideous snake heads. "I'm also going to send a Patronus message, but I don't think we can wait for backup, not with what Lilith was blathering about." She pulled out her wand. "Merlin. I _hate_ people with ideas of world domination." She screwed up her face, and a moment later it relaxed into the happiest expression Charlie had ever seen—her eyes were wide with joy and a huge smile stretched from ear to ear. "_Expecto Patronum._" A huge, silver wolf shot out from her wand tip, and she told it to deliver messages to Remus, Severus, and Dawlish. It rumbled its answer in a low snarl, nodding its huge, translucent, shaggy head, and then it bounded towards the exit, bright and hopeful in the gloom. But instead of passing _through_ the stone door like Charlie would have expected it to, it bounced off the stone with a sickening crunch, and it howled a quicksilver yelp of pain, then dissipated into the air in a wisp of smoke.

"Dammit!" Tonks swore. "Anti-Apparition Jinx _and_ an Anti-Patronus Jinx? She must be really serious about this..." Anxiety pulled her wide smile into the thinnest line. "Let's go," she barked out, jogging towards the other door. Charlie and Luna kept pace, until, when Tonks passed Smith, she stopped. She shot a Stunner at him for good measure. "What else did you find in his pockets?" she asked, moving towards the door once more, this time with quick steps rather than a jog.

Charlie pulled out the glass vials and the piece of parchment as they walked. "The grass with the sedative," he said, holding the bottle up to the light so that the little slivers of grass glinted with an eerie luminescence. He pocketed the vial again; perhaps it'd be useful later. The other vial contained a violet liquid that had an oily sheen to it so that it looked thick and slick behind the glass. "And something else... maybe the anti-venom potion." He twisted the vial until he could read the label. "Antidote... that's all it says," he told the women.

"I think we should take some," Luna said. They were halfway to the door, now, and Charlie could see that a large shape lay prone next to it. His heart jumped. _Don't let it be Bill,_ he thought irrationally; he'd never heard a sound, after all. It must have happened before they'd been Portkeyed here. He couldn't see what it was, yet, but he had no doubt that it was another nasty type of magifauna put here by the goblins to guard Imhotep's tomb. _How the hell does Bill get in and out of here each time?"_

"I don't know..." Tonks prevaricated after a few moments of quiet contemplation.

But a muscle pulled in Charlie's jaw. "We might have to, Tonks," he said. "Who knows what else is in this tomb, just lurking and waiting." He shivered involuntarily. Without giving her a moment to protest, he unscrewed the top and took a swallow of the oily liquid, grimacing as it slid down his throat in a disgustingly smooth fashion. _Ugh. Tastes like fish oil._

Seeing that he hadn't keeled over, Tonks and Luna both took a swig of the antidote potion. There was a little left in the vial, and he saw Tonks pocket it. "For Hermione," she explained. Charlie nodded his agreement.

"What's on the piece of paper, Charlie?" Luna asked, slipping her hand into his.

Charlie unfolded the piece of parchment, and he frowned as he tried to decipher the scrawl. It didn't make much sense to him: just odd phrases and meaningless scribbles, it seemed.

"Dunno," he said after a moment of turning the parchment this way, then that, frowning heavily. He shook his head. "Bunch of chicken scratch, if you ask me."

"Holy—" Luna breathed, having shifted her attention to the large creature lying prone on the floor. It was easy to see what it was, now that they were within metres of the stone-lintelled door.

Charlie folded the parchment mindlessly as he _gaped_ at it. He whistled through his teeth, and although it was dead, lying in a large pool of blood, his heart rate increased and adrenaline spiked alarm through his nerves.

Tonks bent down to have a closer look at the startling sight of a human face—razor sharp teeth bared in a grimace of pain—on the feline body. A long, spike-tipped scorpion tail lay bent and broken underneath the massive paws. "Is that a—"

"Manticore, yup," Charlie said grimly, shoving the piece of parchment back into his pocket. Although they were wizarding-bred and dangerous as all hell, he still _hated_ seeing something killed like that, just left to lie in its drying blood. Slaughtered.

"It's... big," Luna said, pressing closer to him as they walked around it.

"Let's go," he said tightly, and all three of them stepped through the door.

The world went black again, and somebody—it may even have been Charlie himself—squeaked in alarm.

"Bugger," Tonks murmured. "There's another Dampening Charm here; they must have cracked the one in the big cavern." She gave a huge sigh. "I'm not very good at this sort of curse-breaking... Dark curses, piece of cake, but this!"

Charlie stepped back into the large cavern for a moment, and he found three smallish rocks, which he Transfigured into Muggle torches. _I hope to hell this works,_ he thought as he stepped back into the dark. All that time spent with his dad in the Burrow's shed had better not have gone to waste. He slid the switch forward, and relief flooded him as the light cut a swathe into the darkness.

"Clever," Luna said, squeezing his bicep.

But Charlie's attention was riveted on what lay ahead of them. They stood on a ledge—thank Merlin nobody had stepped forward earlier—and beyond that, a deep pit _yawned_. He could just see the far edge of the pit, at the same level they were standing on, now.

_What now?_ he thought, shining the flashlight beam to see how deep the pit was. Deep enough to hurt if you fell. Too deep to climb down. The walls were sheer stone, anyway. _Maybe we can Transfigure some r—_

"There are rungs," Tonks said, shining her light across the top of pit so that it lit a long row of hand rungs, which were set into the stone roof.

Charlie pulled a face. "I don't know about this," he murmured, but he stepped forward to the edge of the pit, and he closed his hand around the first rung, pulling on it to test if it'd hold him. A pebble slipped off the edge of the pit and hit the bottom after a second. Something _hissed_, and his blood went cold. A quick search with his flashlight revealed something writhing on the floor of the pit. _Great. If it's not spiders, it's snakes._ He took a deep breath and prepared to hand-climb his way across.

"Wait," Luna interrupted. She stood next to him with two fingers pressed over her mouth, her eyebrows drawn together, like she was pondering the mystery of life. "Let me see that piece of parchment, please, Charlie," she said, holding out her hand.

She unrolled it and tilted her head as she scanned the snippets of text. "You know," she began in that misty voice he hadn't heard since the day at the library, "I was reading the History of Egyptian Magic the other day when I was bored in the library. Imhotep wasn't just a wizard. He was a great architect and builder... he built a lot of the really complicated tombs and treasure chambers. And he loved to build challenging and complicated traps—"

Tonks interrupted impatiently. "So what?"

Luna shrugged and gave her a steady look. "I just thought that his tomb might be the same, is all," she said simply, and she went back to scanning the piece of paper. "Ah, I think this is it. Three," she said decisively. "We have to skip every _third_ rung."

"Ooookay, then," Tonks said, sounding like she didn't really believe Luna's nattering. "Get a move on, Weasley," she said, gesturing impatiently.

"Every third one," Luna cautioned him as she pressed the parchment back into his pocket.

He nodded tersely, and began to climb across the pit, hand-over-hand, avoiding every third rung (just in case), grunting slightly with the exertion. It didn't help matters that he held the torch between his teeth, its beam bouncing and casting odd shadows on the stone around him. Although he was well-muscled and used to physical labour, this type of exercise was so different, and it _stretched_ his muscles in unfamiliar ways. Luna was just behind him, and Tonks followed her.

Of course, Tonks had to test Luna's theory. Charlie heard a loud crash against the pit's floor and a renewed hissing as a rung fell out of the roof the moment Tonks tested it experimentally. Mercifully, Luna was tactful this time around—or perhaps she was just busy concentrating on making it across.

Finally, as sweat began to bead in the small of his back and he was huffing, he jumped nimbly onto the ledge of the other side of the pit. He put his hands on his knees and bent forward slightly, breathing hard. He straightened when Luna was close enough to touch and then helped her onto solid ground. Although they were descending into a dangerous place with unknown traps—it seemed likely now that Luna had been proven correct—he had to smile grimly when he caught sight of Tonks with her nostrils enlarged as to let in more air.

A moment later, they all stood on the edge of the pit, safe for now.

Charlie turned and shone his light down the passage ahead of them. It sloped down, and he couldn't see to the end of it. The blackness swallowed the thin light after a while, and the black waited for them, hungry and seemingly endless.

Charlie took a deep, steadying breath. "Let's get going, then," he said. He'd holstered his wand earlier, and he felt a little apprehensive without the luxury of magic to help him through this. He stepped forward, and the stone floor sank in a little with an ominous _click_. Above his head, there was a low, rumbling noise. "I didn't do any—"

"Run," Luna shouted, grabbing his hand. "Run. It's a sliding stone..."

He broke into a run at her urging, Tonks following sharply on his heels as the grating sound grew louder, and something that sounded like steel _scraping_ against rock set his nerves on edge. They'd barely run fifteen metres when a large boulder feel out from the ceiling and began to slide down the slope behind them, its momentum inexorably fuelled by gravity. It scraped with a hideous screeching noise, and when Charlie shot a fleeting, alarmed look over his shoulder, he saw that there were steel spikes embedded in the rock.

"Faster," Luna huffed.

Charlie didn't need encouraging, and he revved up his pace into a sprint, light bouncing wildly from the stone walls as he pumped his arms. And then, about thirty metres ahead of him, he saw that the floor just _ended_... another pit yawned hungrily where it dropped off. But this time there were _spikes_ sticking up out of the pit—sharp and merciless and waiting to for the rock to drive them into the expectant air above their flame-sharp tips.

"Pit," he huffed, each footfall bringing him closer and closer to the next grand adventure. Behind him, the large boulder was gaining speed, and it wouldn't be long before it caught his heels and crushed him under its weight. He couldn't think straight, the fear and panic had flooded his brain with so much instinctive reflex, now.

"There's a door, to your left," Tonks yelled, overtaking him in a spurt of speed.

She disappeared into the wall, it looked like. Charlie grabbed Luna's elbow and pushed her sideways into the door to their left. He stepped off the sloped ramp _just_ as the boulder rumbled past then _crashed_ into the pit with a huge clash of stone against steel.

He leant against the stone of the passage they'd just escaped into, trying to get enough air into his lungs to ease the _burn_ that seared in his chest. Next to him, Luna had a hand pressed to her chest, and her cheeks were stained with colour. Her flashlight was wedged between her knees, throwing her face into stark relief.

He glanced up and caught Tonks' eye. She straightened and shone her light ahead of them. The passage turned to the right just ahead, leading deeper into the tomb.

_What next?_ he wondered.

* * *

Author's Note: Thank you to Gelsey for proof-reading.


	18. Deeper

"What now?" Tonks' sigh was weary as they stepped into another cavernous chamber.

More intricately-carved Egyptian scenes coloured the tall walls, and large statues of Egyptian gods lined the walls, watching each other with fixed, stone gazes. A haze of dust was illuminated like glitter in their torchlight—it looked like fine rain was filtering down from the ceiling.

Each wall had three doors set into it; they'd just entered through one of them, but the others were sealed shut with heavy stone slabs. There were bronze plaques set into the stone above each door with Egyptian pictograms engraved upon them. Charlie took a step closer to the nearest doorway and shone his beam on the plaque—it was some sort of strange bird, almost like a stork—and he saw that there was also a strange, rectangular opening beneath the plaque, like the wall had a wide-open mouth and was waiting for food or some offering to be given.

He walked cautiously to the next door, first shining his light up into the distant ceiling to check if there were Acromantula or something equally hideous lurking up there, watching the hapless three as they strode into an ambush. Just stone, he saw with relief. But as he stepped in front of the next sealed doorway, a muffled _shriek_ sounded from behind the door. Charlie skittered back, his heart jammed so far up his throat he couldn't breathe. Something scratched and rammed at the door—_thud!_—and it shrieked again in angry frustration at being separated from its prey. Something touched his shoulder and he jumped, his nerves balancing on a knife-edge.

"It's just me," Luna murmured. "There's something behind that door, too," she said, gesturing across the chamber. "Something that snarled and hissed like a cat… or a Hissing Humdinger."

Charlie didn't appreciate her reference to some obscure, non-existent creature right now, and he ignored her comment without a hint of a smile. He turned to Tonks as she stepped into their conference.

"More snakes," she said wryly, "and something that sounded like a troll farting."

Charlie blew out a frustrated breath, feeling Bill slip further and further away from him; they couldn't afford to stand around like this, dumbfounded, while Bill was subjected to Merlin knew what torture at the hand of the Black Widow and her Dark son. He felt utterly helpless and incompetent, like there was nothing in his realm of experience that might help. He _hated_ feeling this way.

"Ideas?" he asked tersely. "We obviously have to choose a door… and not one with something nasty behind it." He was patently aware that not all the most dangerous creatures in the wizarding world made a noise. _Which door? Which damn door?_

Luna unfolded Smith's piece of parchment and wrinkled her nose. "Choose Life," she read and shrugged, looking blank.

Tonks mirrored Luna's expression.

Charlie scowled and frowned heavily, looking at the bronze plaque over the door as though the pictogram might suddenly morph to English and give them the answer. And then he really noticed what the pictogram was: something that looked like a bird with a human head. _The Soul,_ he thought, remembering Bill talking about some of the pictograms on the tombs they'd visited all those years ago. And suddenly Charlie felt a dark cloud lift from his mind as the answer became apparent, like a bright shaft of sunlight. _Argh,_ he thought. "It's so damn easy!" he exclaimed.

"What?" chorused the women, their eyes snapping to Charlie's hopeful expression.

"Each plaque has a meaning… an Egyptian pictogram that means something. This one is the word for 'soul'." He jabbed his finger in the direction of the plaque.

"But… I don't know about Egyptian pictograms," Luna said, looking annoyed with herself.

"I don't know much either, but I do remember a little, from Bill," Charlie said. "_Choose life_, right? Well, the Egyptian symbol for life is the Ankh—the key to life." It was one of Bill's very favourite hieroglyphic characters… Charlie remembered that Bill had considered getting a tattoo of it, once. "It's like a cross, only with a loop at the top." He sketched it in the air for them.

They all split up, quickly running from door to door, inspecting each engraved symbol. At some of the doors, creatures hissed and grunted, impatient for their next meal.

"Got it," Tonks called out, standing at the door immediately to the right of where they'd entered the chamber.

Charlie nodded as he ran nearer and was able to make out the symbol. "Yeah, that's it. Um… now what?"

"Well… I'd expect somebody has to put their hand into the hold to open the door," Luna said quietly. "I'll do—"

"No, I'll do it," Charlie interrupted, stepping forward. He flexed his hand into a fist, and then spread his fingers out like a wave, feeling the tendons and bones shift under his skin. _I hope that I don't bloody lose my hand,_ he thought darkly.

Despite himself, his body _strained_ away from the hole as he stretched his hand out, and he felt the natural urge for survival… run, run far away. But he gritted his teeth and put his hand into the yawning dark, expecting something sharp and painful and hard to _skewer_ his hand at any moment. His arm was almost into the hole up to his elbow when he felt something rough against his fingertips. As he pressed against it, it gave way with a loud, grinding sound. He _jerked_ his arm out of the hole quickly, alarm speeding in his veins, only to see that the door was sliding sideways, granting them passage into another dark corridor.

They hurried through the doorway deeper into the tomb, and Charlie hoped that they were finally past all of the secrets that Imhotep's tomb had in store. _I'm no Indiana Jones,_ he thought ruefully as he bent to move through the low-ceilinged passage. A sharp and biting pain twisted around his heart like barbwire as he remembered how Bill used to pretend he was the tomb-exploring adventurer when they'd been young boys: the rickety stairs were a danger-fraught trap just waiting to swallow them whole; the ghoul in the attic was a giant mummy that would chase them if they ventured into its lair; the cellar was a dark, dark tomb that held the worlds greatest and oldest secrets. Charlie had always been a mostly-unwilling co-adventurer, shuddering at the gossamer spider webs in the enclosed spaces Bill had navigated them through.

He breathed a sigh of relief when the ceiling opened to another chamber with three doors at its far end. He felt a surge of exultation when he saw that there was nothing between him and the doors, and he started to take a big step forward. Tonks gripped his arm so tightly that her nails dug into his skin.

"Wait!" she exclaimed, her eyes narrowed as she surveyed the floor of the room. "There's something…"

"Oh!" Luna bent down to touch the floor, and her finger sunk into it, then her wrist, before she pulled it out quickly. "It's... sand."

And then Charlie saw it more clearly: the floor of the chamber was slightly different in texture to the stone they stood upon, now… fine and lighter-coloured. It merely looked like stone to the eye, but now he knew that it was a sea of sand—an almost invisible trap.

"Quicksand," Tonks said, her hair falling flat with disappointment. "And it's too far to make it across by jumping… Shit!"

Luna sat down on the stone floor and pulled out the piece of parchment again. "He had clues for the other chambers written down," she murmured to herself.

_Then, if they had the answers to the traps, what the hell did they need Bill for?_ Charlie wondered. _And how did they know what Imhotep's tomb would be like?_ New questions rose to replace the ones he'd had since the dragon had been killed. More questions. _Like we need new problems,_ he thought sarcastically as Luna hummed softly, tracing a fingertip over the writing on the parchment.

"Five by five, stay alive," Luna murmured, and then she glanced up to gaze across the sea of sand, gnawing absently on a thumbnail.

Charlie could feel Tonks' tension: it was almost a solid, tangible thing. Her hair was rising with ire, angry flashes of red streaking through it, now, as she paced up and down... five steps, turn, five steps. Quick, angry, short strides.

"Just give her a moment; she's figured it out before," he said quietly, feeling the strong need to defend Luna again. Tonks' frenetic aggravation was making him feel worse, making him feel like there was something visceral and alive under his skin, itching and crawling. He slapped his arm, and then rubbed it fiercely.

"OK," Luna said in the sing-song voice. "If you divide the quicksand into five blocks of five, like a small version of a chessboard, right?" Luna gestured her concept in the air, drawing imaginary lines with her hands to illustrate her point.

"Yessss?" Tonks hissed, stopping mid-stride with her eyes narrowed and her hair standing on end like she'd been zapped with an Electros Charm.

"And then you number the blocks in columns… one, two, three—"

"Yes." Impatient. Hard.

Charlie glared at Tonks, although he felt his own impatience and desperation to _move_ snarling in his mind.

Luna blinked—unperturbed—at them, her eyes calm and lucid. "Well, then Smith's note makes sense: _one, three, four, four, and three._ That's the number block you have to step on in each successive row. And then we take the _middle_ door, because we'll already be in the middle block of the law row! I'll bet my lucky Dirigible Plum that there's a path under the sand and that you just have to know the right sequence." She hauled herself to her feet and smiled at Charlie in triumph.

Tonks gave Luna a sceptical look but nodded sourly.

Charlie understood Tonks' terse nod—they didn't really have any other ideas. And he actually thought that what Luna had said made a fair amount of sense. "There's one way to test," he said decisively, and he strode over to the far left of the quicksand sea. The sand was warm, surprisingly, and it slid through his fingers like silk when he immersed his hand into it. About ten centimetres below the surface, his fingertips brushed against stone. _She was right!_

"Let's go," he said, looking at Luna, and the corner of his mouth lifted slightly in a smile for her cleverness and her calm. Charlie was _sure_ that if not for her demeanour to keep him tethered to some semblance of logic, he'd have had a heart attack or an aneurysm by now. _Give me fire-breathing dragons tailing my arse any day!_

Charlie took a first, tentative step onto the hidden path, holding his breath. As he stepped onto the block below the flat and seemingly quiescent sandy surface, he felt the stone beneath his feet give way a centimetre as he put his weight onto it. _Click._ Charlie glanced around wildly. A low rumble shook the chamber for a moment, and then there was an ominous grinding sound from above his head.

"The ceiling!" Tonks shouted. "It's lowering!"

Charlie glanced up in absolute horror as the smooth stone of the ceiling lowered by the second. Within minutes, it would be at sand level, pressing all of them into the quicksand!

"Move!" Tonks yelled, shoving at his shoulder.

"Three, four, four, three!" Luna reminded him.

After a brief moment of hesitation and flat out panic-induced blankness, Charlie set his mind to concentrating on _getting the hell out of this_.

"Three," he muttered to himself, launching himself forward and to the right. _I'm going to die breathing sand,_ he thought before he landed in a crouch, his boots hitting the stone just beneath the surface.

Luna had already jumped onto the first stone, and Tonks was urging him to "Move, move, move!" as the ceiling lowered inexorably, already a foot lower than it had been.

He took the next two steps quickly. "Four, four…" He heard Luna and Tonks jumping and landing behind him, but he didn't stop to look. By now, he had to dip his head as he jumped forward onto the last block. He expected the ceiling to stop moving, but it continued to lower, leaving less and less space for the two women.

"Go, go, go!" Tonks yelled. Charlie stepped into the middle doorway and turned with fear blackening in his veins. He held out his hand to help Luna into the doorway, and she fell into him, panting with exertion, a fine sheen of sweat on her face. Tonks' eyes were wide and her face was set in grim concentration as she leapt onto the last block with only about three foot between the ceiling and the sand, now. Charlie stepped backwards to give her room to launch herself into the doorway, and there was another _click_ as he stepped on yet another recessed switch stone.

_Fuck. What now?_ he thought. But the grinding stopped for a moment, then started again as the ceiling of the quicksand trap began to rise, resetting itself.

Tonks was white as snow as she came to stand beside him. "That was close," she said, failing to achieve a cheerful tone. She scowled as she patted her pockets and came up empty. "Quicksand got my torch," she said, snarling again.

"At least that's all it got," Luna said. Her hair had come loose from its many odd fastenings, and the phoenix feather was missing, now. She rolled up the sleeves of her emerald robes in a businesslike fashion. "Next," she said, turning to shine her light into the room they'd entered. "Ooooh," she breathed, awe widening her eyes.

There was a very large, raised dais in the middle of the chamber, and on it was a sarcophagus—Imhotep's last resting place. But that was nothing in comparison to the roof of the chamber, which was illuminated by their weak swathes of torchlight. An inverted step-pyramid seemed to _grow_ downwards from the ceiling, its tip just metres above the sarcophagus. The surfaces of the step-pyramid were intricately carved and inlaid with gold and gemstones so that it glittered and shimmered, almost blinding Charlie. He dipped his light beam slightly away from it, so that he could see better by indirect light. He took a step forward, caught up in the magnificence of the spectacle, and he tripped over something on the floor, sprawling forward and knocking his chin on the stone. "Ungh!" he grunted as he narrowly avoiding biting his tongue, and then he flipped over and sat up to see what he'd fallen over. Luna already had her light on it, and at first, all Charlie saw were milky eyes in a mountain of spiny bristles. Then he saw the pincers, and he backpedalled from the huge Acromantula, sliding backwards across the stone floor on his arse as he _pushed_ away from the spider with his boot heels and his hands. "Aaaaah!"

"It's dead," Tonks said, kicking at its carcass so that its long legs shivered, and there was a slight edge of smug amusement to her tone that raised Charlie's hackles.

Charlie glared at her before hauling himself to his feet. "Fuck. Off," he warned, before he brushed off the back of his pants and strode away from her. The burial chamber was large, and it looked like the Zabinis had been very busy because three more Acromantula carcasses littered the stone floor. Charlie gave each a wide berth, zigzagging across to the door on the other side. Cold fingers of steel stroked up and down his spine, and he struggled not to shudder with horror. _Spiders. Ugh. Hate spiders._

"They're really harmless and kind creatures," Luna said from behind him.

He clenched his jaw so that he wouldn't snap at her, held his breath until he was calm. "Ron was almost eaten by them, once," he said tightly.

Luna flapped her hand as she drew level with him at the door. "Tall tales," she said in her sing-song 'nothing is wrong with the world' voice.

A long flight of stairs, bracketed by old-fashioned torches at the door, extended down into the black, leading deeper into the ground.

Tonks touched his shoulder just as he was about to argue back with Luna. "Shhhhhtttt," she demanded in an urgent hiss.

Charlie bent his head and clicked off his light as he strained to listen. Voices drifted up the stairs, muffled by the thick air and the stone.

"Switchitoff," Tonks murmured in an exhaled breath.

Charlie and Luna clicked their torches off, and the burial chamber fell dark. Charlie blinked as residual flickers and specks of light danced on the surface of his eyes. And then everything was pitch-black around them. As his eyes adjusted, he realised that he was wrong: a soft, eerie, green glow emanated from the bottom of the stairs, filtering up weakly along with the voices. It was obvious they'd caught up with Bill and his captors. If only he could hear what they were saying!

_What I'd do for a pair of Extendable Ears right now!_ Charlie pulled out his wand from its holster again, but there was no answering flicker of magic that tingled against his palm; there was still a Dampening Charm in place here.

The voices were still an incomprehensible tangle: an angry, feminine blur interwoven with lower, male voices. Arguing. Charlie thought he could make out a few words: Idiot, wand, back, kill…

_Something about a wand,_ Charlie thought, frowning hard.

Tonks bumped against Luna as she leaned closer to try to hear what the voices were saying. Charlie felt Luna gasp and fumble in the air before her torch fell to the stone floor with a loud _clatter_. The voices cut off abruptly. And then the flickering green light was washed out by a brilliant, shimmering light that rose higher and higher as it surged towards them. The three backed away from the door as a snarling, quicksilver lioness prowled up the stairs, stopping just short of entering the burial chamber.

_Shit,_ Charlie thought as the Patronus growled, its translucent tail twitching angrily as it took them in with a luminescent gaze. And then it turned and bounded back down the stairs.

"Quick! Go down the stairs," Tonks cried. "A Patronus means that we can use magic down there!"

But Charlie couldn't make himself move—if they all went down the narrow stairs, it would be easy to pick them off one by one as they exited. One-Avada Kedavra-two-Avada Kedavra-three, and they'd all be dead!

"Wait," he said desperately, his voice ragged and hoarse with alarm. "It'd be an ambush… suicide," he said, tugging on her arm as she _strained_ forwards.

Tonks stopped pulling against his hold, and she huffed a gust of annoyance. "All right," she snapped. "Fine. Take cover behind the tomb, and we'll wait for them to come and get us."

They scurried across the burial chamber—Charlie chancing a quick flick—on and off—of his torch to see where they were going—and crouched behind Imhotep's sarcophagus, and then they heard a clatter of boots against stones as somebody ran up the stairs.

"Come out now, and I'll spare you a painful death," Blaise Zabini demanded. There was a metallic _click_ and _scrape_, and then a _whoosh_ of flame as he lit one of the old-fashioned oil torches, which was bracketed on the wall. Flickering light crept across the tomb, casting long, angular shadows around the stiff Acromatula legs.

"My mother _will_ kill your brother, Weasley," Blaise snarled. "And you had better not have hurt Zach, or I'll kill your little girlfriend."

Charlie clenched his fists, and his face pulled into a grimace of anger.

But it was Luna who stood up and put her hands on her hips. "You're bluffing, Blaise," she said, and her high, musical voice echoed strangely off the stone walls. "Your mother needs him to get into that treasure chamber."

"Hardly! You have ten seconds," Blaise said, his voice as cold and hard as flint.

"He's outnumbered and at a disadvantage without magic in here," Tonks whispered to him, and Charlie gaped as he saw her colour change in a ripple, so that she blended in with the stone, almost invisible.

"Eight," Zabini called out tersely.

"But I don't need my wand to Morph," she said, stripping off her robes so that she was just in her bra and knickers. "Thank Merlin I wore my boring undies today." She grinned, flashing white teeth, and Charlie glanced away, feeling a bit embarrassed. The stone-coloured Tonks moved away slowly, slinking like a predator around the edge of the golden light.

"Six!"

"We need to keep him talking," Charlie murmured as he rose to stand next to Luna. He wanted to rush at Blaise, to tackle him so hard that his arrogant face would _smash_ against the wall.

"Five."

But Charlie kept his temper in check. "I think you're _full of shit_, Zabini," Charlie called out. "I have my brother's wand, and I _bet_ he needs it to get you into that chamber…"

"Four!" Zabini barked out, although Charlie saw the line of his shoulders tighten.

"What are you going to do, anyway, when you reach the end of your countdown, Blaise?" Luna called. She slipped her hand into Charlie's, intertwining her fingers with his. They were joined. A team.

"Three." Still, Zabini hovered on the edge of the doorway, obviously not keen to step into a space where he'd not have magic at his evil fingertips.

"I'll break it, Zabini… snap it in half. I swear to Merlin," Charlie threatened, although Bill would doubtless be pissed as all hell with him.

Zabini took a step forward into the burial chamber, his teeth bared in an angry snarl. Charlie saw a hint of movement to Zabini's right—a stone coloured, stealthy attack approaching. He smiled grimly, waiting for it…

"T—aaargh!" And Blaise Zabini hit the floor with a satisfying _crunch_ as Tonks tackled him. A cloud of sandy dust rose in a haze, and Charlie couldn't see Tonks clearly through it, although he could see that Zabini had his hands held behind his back at an awkward angle. As he ran closer, still clutching Luna's hand, he saw that Tonks had her knee jammed into Zabini's back, holding his hands as he _struggled_ to break free, flailing and kicking ineffectively. He curbed the urge to punch the Dark man and helped Tonks to tie Zabini's hands together with a length of Tightening Twine, which Luna handed to him. Luna gagged him by stuffing a handkerchief plucked from her cleavage into his mouth.

Tonks retrieved her robes and pulled them on again as Charlie hauled Zabini to his feet roughly. The man struggled and strained, making a sound like a pig being slaughtered, his eyes wild with rage.

"Shut the fuck up, Zabini," Tonks snarled as she stalked back to them. "You're going to be a good little boy—" She patted his cheek a little too hard to be friendly. "—and be our shield as we go down the stairs to see your darling mother."


	19. Eye of Re

The stairs down to Imhotep's treasure chamber were narrow and steep—a trial to navigate under the best of circumstances. But with a struggling and bound Blaise Zabini threatening to send him pitching forward down the stairs, Charlie had to stop halfway, grunting and panting with exertion from trying to balance pulling Blaise back and pushing him forward. He longed to rub at his burning elbow, which he'd just skinned against the stone wall.

Tonks shifted her grip on the back of Charlie's belt; she and Luna were acting as his counter-balance, making sure that he did not tumble into the Black Widow's lair.

Luna sighed softly and blew out a long stream of air to stir the flyaway bits of hair that were sticking to her face. "How much longer?" Luna asked.

"About halfway. Maybe we should Stun him and just Levitate him down," Tonks said contemplatively, although there was a hint of dark malice to her tone like she'd like nothing better.

Charlie snorted as Blaise tried to wrench free from his grasp again. "Maybe," he said darkly.

But he wanted all of their wands free as soon as they exited the confines of the stairs, and a Levitation Charm would be an unnecessary drain on their reserves. Three to one were very good odds, but they _were_ emerging at a disadvantage, disgorging from a narrow space so that she might be able to pick them off one-by-one. Charlie was not entirely sure how much she wanted this Eye of Re thing… was she willing to hex her son to get to him? She'd certainly sounded passionate about it, earlier. _Blindly passionate and not a little insane_, he thought with an internal sigh.

"And we might scrape his pretty face along the walls if we did that," Tonks said conversationally, now. "Did you check his pockets to see if the rumours are true? Do you carry a mirror, Blaisey-boy?" she taunted.

"Mmmmph!" Blaise's angry yell was muffled through the gag.

"She can't hear you, anyway," Charlie said, talking another step down towards Lilith Zabini and Bill. They'd erected a Silencing Bubble around their group to muffle any indication of their approach. Of course, that advantage would be negated if Lilith decided to send her Patronus up to see what was going on. It would come to the point that she'd get impatient with her son's slow progress.

As they neared the bottom of the stairs, the sickly green light increased in intensity like an ominous beacon. Charlie didn't know what he would do if she'd hurt Bill… what would he tell Fleur? What would he tell his mother? She had already shouldered such a heavy load. The death of another child would surely be too much for her to bear. Too much for them all...

"Stop!" a cold voice ordered.

Charlie could just see over Blaise's shoulder to where Lilith stood in a small, square chamber, shielded by Bill, her wand at his throat. He tightened his trip on Blaise as he felt Tonks drop the Silencing Bubble into the air around them.

"Surrender, vile woman!" Tonks called out from behind him. "We have your preciousssss…"

Charlie glared at the back of Blaise's head, astounded that she could bloody joke at a time like this.

"And _I_ have your brother," she said to Charlie, sounding unperturbed. "So… it seems we are at an impasse, yes?"

Charlie shuffled forward off the last step, careful to keep Blaise in front of him as he moved. Carefully, the women behind him squeezed past into a corner of the chamber. _Shit. What now?_ he thought desperately, unable to see an easy way out of their predicament.

Bill looked calm and neutral, although his jaw was set in a tight line and his eyes were serious. "Wand," he mouthed at Charlie. Obviously Lilith had put him under a Silencing Charm, too. _Blast!_

_She wants the wand,_ Charlie thought, confirming his earlier suspicion.

The walls of the chamber were smooth, aside from a single, tiny round hole in the centre of the wall opposite the stairs. _So, the treasury is opened by wand signature, then?_ Charlie wondered, biting his lip. Bill's wand was in his jacket pocket, along with Smith's and Blaise's; he'd amassed quite a collection already today.

Blaise struggled more vigorously, and he was trying to shout something to his mother through the gag, straining so hard that the veins at his temples were standing out under his dark skin.

Bill widened his eyes at Charlie. _What?_ That was a signal from Bill to do something, but Charlie couldn't figure out what! Bill's eyebrows drew together in a frustrated frown.

"Give me the wand, and I will let him live," Lilith said, digging her wand more viciously into Bill's throat.

"I don't believe you, Black Widow," Luna piped up. "I think you plan to kill us all, anyway."

The Nubian woman cursed at Luna in a stream of a strange and ancient language, and then she snarled and spat, "Give me the wand, or he dies, now!"

Bill widened his eyes again. "Hex me," he mouthed past the Silencing Charm that muted him.

And then Charlie understood all at once, like a Lumos had gone off, exploded, inside his head.

Charlie tightened his grip on Blaise before aiming his wand at Bill's chest. "_Stupefy_!" he shouted.

The jet of red light streaked towards Bill, but the instant before it made contact, a bright, silvery shimmer of light haloed Bill and absorbed the Stunner. The force of the defensive shield activated by Bill's wrist tattoos knocked him forward and away from Lilith's wand, and it also knocked Lilith off balance momentarily. Bill rolled out of the way, and Tonks and Luna rushed forwards around Charlie while Lilith was still off balance. Her shrieked, "_Avada Kedavra_," send a searing bolt of green spellfire towards the ceiling, and it gouged a large chunk out of the stone, which landed with a dull thud just next to Charlie.

Although the Black Widow still had a wand in her hand, Luna tackled Lilith Zabini so hard that Charlie winced when Lilith's head hit the stone wall with a _crunch_. In the haze of stone dust that had risen into the air, Charlie saw that Tonks had wrenched Lilith's wand from her hand.

_Go Luna!_ he thought, gaping in disbelief at her recklessly brave act. Relief surged through Charlie's senses in an overwhelming rush, his heart racing to keep up with the spike of adrenaline that had spiked just seconds ago.

Blaise Zabini _strained_ and struggled against Charlie at seeing his mother fall, but Charlie was stronger than the taller Dark wizard and _wrenched_ his arms tighter behind him, telling him to, "Stay still, you bastard."

Luna screeched like a banshee as Lilith grabbed a large handful of her silvery blonde hair and—in a move that Tonks and Charlie would retell many times later that day—punched Lilith Zabini so hard that she crumpled to the floor, unconscious. And then Luna pulled herself to her feet, tucking her hair behind her ears. "Whew," she said, dusting herself off. "Muggle fighting is fun." She examined the knuckles of her right hand and pulled a face. "Painful, though."

Bill had managed to stagger to his feet in the meanwhile, his hands still bound behind his back, his efforts to say something still muted. Charlie released the Silencio.

"Take your time, Chaz," he said dryly as Tonks moved to untie his hands.

Charlie couldn't help but grin at his brother. "I might have to have a second think about getting some of those," he said appreciatively tipping his head towards Bill's arms. Although Lilith had used a similar charm-imbued tattoo to keep Ron her virtual slave, today Bill's own set had just saved all of their lives.

Luna seemed to have taken on the job of guarding Lilith's prone body. "I'll tie her up," she said cheerfully. After immobilizing Blaise, Charlie went over to help her. When Lilith was bound to match her son, Charlie gave Luna a hug, burying his face into the soft curve of her neck where she still smelled like oranges and spice. Relief had seeped through to his muscles, now, and he started to feel bone-weary, like he wanted to collapse into her arms and be there for a long, long time. He kissed her neck, tasting dust and salt against his tongue. It was over… finally over!

"Get a room!" Tonks said, dropping the Tightening Twine that had bound Bill's wrists.

Charlie blushed but kept an arm around Luna's waist as he turned to Tonks and Bill.

"Why didn't she guard against your tattoos, William?" she asked him.

"_He_ tied me up," Bill said, kicking his foot at Blaise's boot. "Didn't look under the wrist cuffs, thank Merlin. We were lucky…" He raised his eyebrows at Charlie. "Wand?" he asked.

"Ah… er… yeah." Charlie scrabbled through his pocket and sorted through the wands. "This one, yeah?" Of course he recognised Bill's wand; he'd been at the pointy end of it often enough when they'd duelled in the garden at the Burrow and at Hogwarts.

"Yeah… let's get out of here and get these two into custody," Tonks said, glancing from one Zabini to the other with a fiercely disdainful look.

Luna turned to look up the stairway and sighed sadly. "Through all of that again," she murmured.

Bill shook his head. "Nope," he said, sliding his wand into the tiny hole in the stone wall. There was a distinct _click_, and the edges of the wall glowed orange for a moment. Bill pulled his wand out of the hole, and a hidden mechanism ground to life, rolling the wall sideways to reveal a dark chamber beyond. "We don't come in through the traps to check on the tomb," he said, bending down to pull Blaise to his feet after lifting the Petrificus.

Tonks pointed her wand at Lilith. "_Ennervate_." The Black Widow shuddered and her dark eyes flashed open, glaring hate at all of them. She opened her mouth to shriek at them, but Tonks zapped her with a Silencio before she could utter one vile syllable. Tonks hauled her to her feet. "Let's go, bitch. You've caused enough trouble for one lifetime."

Charlie and Luna, hand-in-hand, lit the way into the treasure chamber with their wands held aloft. Bill and Tonks followed, dragging the Zabinis with them.

Gold and gems of all shapes and sizes shimmered all around them in the soft wand light, glittering in heaps and chests, piled high all around them. Charlie whistled softly.

"Yeah," Bill said with a chuckle. "We'll get it all moved to a Gringott's vault soon enough, but it takes forever to inventory and categorise. And the Egyptian goblins are still bickering about exchange rates with the other branches, which is why all this stuff is still here. It's my job to find it and then to make sure all the wards are in place until it's gone." He shoved Blaise forward. "Never expected anybody to get past the manticore," he said wryly.

_And two dragons lost their lives for it._ As if Luna could sense Charlie's sad thought, she squeezed his hand and smiled at him.

"What were they looking for again?" Tonks asked Bill.

Bill stopped walking and handed Blaise to Charlie, and then he disappeared into the maze of treasure, returning with a small, gold artefact few minutes later. "The Eye of Re," he said, smiling wryly at Lilith as she struggled in vain to get away from Tonks, her eyes wild and wide. He turned it over in his hands, then snorted. "We've removed all items with magical signatures already, Lilith. This is just a gold ornament."

Lilith shook her head wildly, kicking out at Bill.

"I can punch her again," Luna offered brightly.

Charlie frowned. "What if it's something you can't pick up with standard detection charms?" he asked Bill worriedly, staring at the object that had caused all of this mess.

Bill clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Well, maybe I can get Gurnog to smelt it down… that should remove any hidden magical ability."

Lilith was screaming silently, so enraged that Charlie thought she might pop a blood vessel at any moment. Tears of rage streamed down her cheeks. But her son had quietened his struggles, and he stared straight ahead like a man who could see the future and knew that he'd never seen the blue of sky again after he got locked away for his mother's insanity and scheming.

Bill tucked the artefact into his leather jacket and led them to a small alcove off the main chamber. "This is the only spot you can Apparate from and to in the tomb complex," he said. "It's warded to my magical signature, too, so you'll have to all Side-Along with me." He smirked at Lilith. "You didn't know that, did you? You tried to get Ron to ask me how the tombs were guarded… you figured the human was Gringott's weak link, did you?" He leaned closer, and his face twisted into a warrior's grimace, made even more fearsome by his scars. "Well, let me tell you, Lilith… you fucked with the wrong family. The Weasleys are anything but weak…"

Charlie felt a rush of pride… for his brother's strength; for his family's bond; for the honourable way their father had raised them; for the blood that ran in his veins.

"I'll take _her_ first," Bill said grimly, and Tonks yanked Lilith forward so that Bill could take hold of her. Still she screamed and strained silently, looking like a woman who was burning on a pyre.

Charlie was the last to Side-Along out of Imhotep's tomb with Bill, and when he landed somewhere in Gringotts' Cairo branch, finally safe and out of danger, he hugged his brother, hard, thumping him on the back and fighting back tears.

By that stage, Al from the Egyptian MLE had arrived and was taking Lilith and Blaise into custody. Another two Aurors were waiting off to the side, and they stepped forward towards Bill.

"Yeah, don't forget Zach," Luna said from where she sat, gulping a tall glass of water down. "You wouldn't want him to miss out on the delights of jail." She grinned impishly.

"Let's go," said Bill to the two Egyptian Aurors. "I'll take you to get the other one."

Charlie grinned at Luna. She was dirty and her hair stood snarled into a wild halo around her head, but she was so beautiful and brave, and without her cool logic they'd all have died down there.

Tonks and Al were leaving through a door, bickering about jurisdiction and chain of custody—all the countries would want their piece of these criminals—but Charlie barely heard them as he walked towards the woman who had made a very special place of her own in his heart.

He realised that in all the rush of danger and the dizzying fall into love, they'd had a very unconventional start to anything that might grow between them.

"Luna," he said as he held out his hand to her. "Would you like to go out to dinner with me?"


	20. Freedom

_Five months later, more or less…_

The light breeze blowing into the room was sultry, and it carried the warm promise of summer and the sea with it. Wind chimes and mirrored dream catchers tinkled softly, and spots of silver light danced across the walls and the bed.

Charlie sighed contentedly and stroked Luna's hand. Her skin was silvery white against his densely freckled chest. She was sprawled against his side, her head resting on his shoulder, and she didn't seem to give any indication that she was thinking of moving very soon.

"We have to get up," he murmured. His breath stirred her white-blonde hair, which smelled like Egypt and spice today.

He felt her smile against his skin, and her hand traced down his stomach slowly. Desire tightened his nerves, and he groaned softly as she began to trace the tattoo of a dragon, which sat low on his left hipbone.

"Well, _one_ of us does," she said, tracing a tingling line over his skin. "Ahhh. There," she said with no small amount of self-satisfaction as he hardened under her wrist. She moved her hand, and her fingers began to stroke up and down his erection.

"Luna…" he moaned, his buttocks tightening and lifting his hips up to her touch even as he complained. "We have to—"

"—take care of more important matters first," she interrupted blithely, lifting her head from his shoulder and giving him a peck on the lips before sliding down his body, rubbing her breasts against his skin as she went, her hair trailing in a maddeningly arousing trail after her. "Wouldn't you agree?" she breathed against his cock, making him grimace in fierce anticipation. "It's your fault, anyway," she said matter-of-factly, and then she ran the tip of her tongue down the length of his cock.

"Ungh." He took a shuddering breath and surrendered to the inevitability that Luna would get her way, eventually. "Why?" he gasped as she trailed her tongue up again, agonisingly slowly. _Don't make me beg!_

"Because you made me wait forever for this, that's why…" After an unconventional start, Charlie had made sure to court her properly, and although he'd desperately wanted her, he'd gone the honourable route for several months before giving into her alluring belly dance seduction one evening a few weeks ago.

"S'proper," he managed to choke out as she finally—Merlin, finally!—took him into her warm mouth and sucked gently. His fingers wound into her hair and each muscle strained towards her lips as he seemed to lose coherency in the haze of desire.

Just as everything started to coalesce towards a bright, tight point, Luna lifted her head, and his heavy and hard cock bobbed, then came to rest hot against his lower belly. She smiled at him; her grey eyes were almost silver with happiness as she sat up then moved to straddle his hips.

"Mmm," she murmured as she guided him into herself, making him groan loudly. She sat still for a moment and brushed her fingertips across his flat nipples and then down his stomach muscles, which were bunched tight as his body and begged to be unravelled from the delicious torture. "You're lovely," she said simply, and then she began to move.

"S-so… are you," he said through the pounding of his heartbeat in his throat. And she was, he marvelled as he lifted his hands to cup her breasts. The silvery spots of light danced across her skin, and her hair streamed down her back, tickling the tops of his thighs as she moved with him.

An intricately-made gold chain bounced lightly across the backs of his fingertips as he tweaked her nipples into hard peaks, making her gasp with pleasure. The chain was a gift from the Egyptian goblins, ironically made from the melted-down Eye of Re; Charlie had a gold ring from them, too, intricately carved with protective runes.

As their pleasure began to surge upwards to a sharp peak, Charlie shifted his hands to her hips, urging her to move harder, faster. She was so beautiful, moving above him like that, a shaft of sunlight rippling and highlighting her curves like a caress. She tilted her head back, and a rosy flush coloured her cheeks and chest as she came. And then, as if she'd drawn him along with her, the whole world pulled in tightly to an intense point of light around him, before it exploded outwards.

"I love you," he gasped as the room surged back into focus.

She smiled and bent down to kiss him, her hair falling in a wild tumble around his face. "I love you, too, Charlie," she said, as if he were silly to doubt it for even one second.

They arrived at the Freedom Day festival, more than a little fashionably late.

Bright stalls dotted Hogwarts' grounds from the Great Doors all the way down to the edge of the lake. A rainbow of streamers fluttered in the late spring breeze, and the scent of candyfloss and cooking food made his mouth water.

Charlie smiled at a group of wizards who were clustered in a knot of gossip just outside of the Apparition booth. "They're all going to _know_ what we've been doing," he said through gritted teeth.

Luna grinned at him. "So?"

Charlie tried not to roll his eyes. He loved her dearly, but sometimes her sense of propriety was a little skewed. "Your hair is all…"

"Sex-snarled?" she asked with an impish wink as she twisted it into a bun and secured it in place with her wand.

He gave her a smile. When she was in a mood like this it was best to grin and bear it or she'd tease him and tease him endlessly. "I enjoyed getting it that way," he whispered in retaliation as they walked down to see the stalls.

Her silvery laugh made his spirits soar, and he took her hand, entwining his fingers with hers. They had a lot to figure out—where they would live when they decided to move in together; whether Charlie would take the job offer at the Australian reservation; what Luna would do if he did take the job—but they were happy for the most part, and they balanced each other very nicely. Luna's light touch of whimsy tempered Charlie's intensity, and they both benefited from a little of the other in their lives.

A horde of students flowed and parted around them, headed back up to the castle, their pockets empty and their cheeks full of sweets. It looked like Britain's entire wizarding population was here to celebrate the day that Voldemort went poof. Charlie was glad that the annual celebrations hadn't turned into some pompous event with long and boring speeches. A festival was so much more fun, and it brought their community together like no other day.

It was easy to spot the WWW stall; Fred and George had gone all out this year with blinking neon lights and fireworks fizzing above their stand.

"Well, hello, big brother," Fred said as they approached.

"You _are_ late," George noted with a waggle of his eyebrows.

"_Wherever_ have you been?" Fred asked, his long and sun-freckled fingertips dancing over a row of bottles.

"We had… lunch before we came," Charlie said stiffly, feeling embarrassment was looming close on the horizon.

"Lunch!" chorused the twins.

"Now, _there's_ a new one!" George said, snickering. "I'll have to remember that one…"

"A present for you," Fred said, handing Charlie a little glass bottle.

"Edible massage oil," George said, executing a gallant bow.

"I… er—" Charlie started to turn bright red.

"Oooh, thank you," Luna interrupted, taking the little bottle from Charlie's hand and dropping it into her bag. "What flavour is it?" she asked with genuine interest.

"_Passion_fruit," Fred said, smirking at Charlie. Charlie started to pull Luna away from the WWW stall before his brothers could do any more damage.

"Use it well!" George called out.

Luna flipped a quick glance over her shoulder at the twins. "Oh, we will, thank you!"

She turned back to Charlie and winked. "Mmm," she murmured, then turned to look at the next stall. "Oh, hello, Mrs Weasley, Neville," she said with a bright smile.

Neville's stall was selling magiflora in lovely ceramic pots, and Charlie's mother was helping him, her witch's hat decorated with a beautiful profusion of flowers. Charlie had a suspicion that there was something going on between the two of them, and he felt a sharp jab of disapproval for a moment as he thought of his father. And then he really _looked_ at his mother. She was smiling and chatting away, giving advice to a little old witch who was buying a pot of Snowbells. She looked _so_ happy. So, Charlie glanced at Neville and nodded. "Neville," he said.

The old witch wandered away, then, her Snowbells tinkling madly as she juggled the pot and her other purchases. Molly beamed at Charlie, and all his remnant misgivings melted away. "Hello, Charlie, my boy," she said, leaning forward to give him a hug. "And Luna…" She gave Luna a big hug, too. Charlie supposed he was lucky that his mother liked his girlfriend; he remembered the cold shoulder Fleur had received in the beginning, and he was very grateful that his mother liked Luna so much.

"We'll be back later, Mum," he said after they'd chatted for several minutes, "after we've done the rounds at the stalls and you're less busy." They were standing in the way of potential customers, and Neville was swamped with handling them on his own.

Molly nodded and gave Luna a beautiful daffodil before turning to the potential customers. As Charlie and Luna threaded through the crowd, Luna gave the daffodil a wary look before casting a subtle Scourgify at it. Her hair—still knotted and making her look like she _certainly_ had just tumbled out of bed fell past her shoulders.

Charlie raised his eyebrows at her: a question and a request.

"Daffodils sometimes have Pearlentas," she said, tucking the flower into her hair and then fastening it with her wand again.

Charlie had learned by this time not to ask anything further, unless he wanted a long diatribe on the habitation and eating habits of a creature he'd never heard of before. "Ahhh. Yes," he said with a smile tugging at his lips.

"Chaz!"

Charlie turned at the sound of his name, and he lifted his free hand to wave at Tonks. She stood, arm-in-arm with Remus, and they were talking and laughing with Bill and Fleur. Both women were radiant in their last trimester of pregnancy; Hermione's little one would soon have new playmates.

He and Luna stopped to talk for a few minutes. A gold necklace—a twin to Luna's—glittered at Tonks' throat, and Bill wore a goblin-made ring on his right hand, with his wedding band on his left. The six of them were very close friends—they'd been family and friends and potential lovers before the ordeal down in Imhotep's tomb, but there was a different bond that wove through their interactions, now; it was a trust that had been forged then, and it was not easily forgotten or discarded. Luna's wall-mural reflected that changed bond: Tonks and Bill had been added to the painting after she'd finished painting Charlie's face. And then, with a serious expression in her grey eyes, she'd started to paint Ron's face into her circle of friends again.

"So, when are you two going to make it official and give our boys another little friend?" Tonks asked without shame, smirking unrepentantly at him. She patted her stomach. Another set of twins were on the way to terrorise the wizarding world. Merlin help them all.

Charlie started to flush _bright_ red. Merlin, he'd love to wring her neck sometimes!

"Zat ees a brilliant plan," Fleur agreed, smoothing a long-fingered, pale hand over her pregnant stomach. "Anuzzer blonde, per'aps, Bill?"

Bill chuckled and shook his head; he knew better... their child was probably going to have red hair, but Fleur still hadn't resigned herself to that fact.

"Everything in its own time," Luna said in her mistiest and airiest voice. Charlie squeezed her hand, feeling an immense wave of appreciation for his girlfriend.

"We'll see you later," Charlie said dryly, "at the fireworks display."

Tonks wiggled her fingers at him and smirked again. "Bye, bye," she sing-songed at him.

As they wove through the crowd again, Charlie caught sight of his youngest brother. To Charlie's absolute surprise, Ron sat on a chair next to Hermione's stall, holding her little girl in his lap while Hermione and Severus sold little crystal bottles of potions.

Ron had lost the haunted, gaunt look of a lost soul, but he still didn't speak much, even though he didn't have to guard his words any longer; before Blaise and Lilith Zabini had been sent to Azkaban for life, they'd been forced to rescind the Unbreakable Vow.

But some ties were more difficult to loosen, and Ron had been deeply scarred by his ordeal. He was healing, though, Charlie liked to think, gaining his life back step-by-step with the support of his family.

Ron's hair had grown long, and it fell past his shoulders in a long, auburn fall. Little Susan clutched a fistful of his hair and tugged, and a slight pulled at the corners of Ron's mouth as he extricated it from the baby's fingers, talking gently to her.

"He's going to be fine," Luna murmured, waving and smiling at Hermione as they passed. Charlie grinned and her and nodded to Severus.

"See you at the fireworks," Hermione called.

Charlie nodded and winked, and he and Luna headed for the magifauna stall closer to the lake after Charlie had ruffled Ron's hair and said hello.

He chuckled as he watched Miles Ritter help the dark-haired Potions teacher (Professor Grant, Charlie heard the students chorus) corral a group of first-years around the stalls. When Miles caught sight of Charlie, he raised his eyebrows and then winked as he gave him a thumbs-up.

"I think he likes you," Luna said with suppressed mirth.

Charlie grumbled something unintelligible about Miles just liking to make him squirm with embarrassment (mission accomplished, since Charlie was blushing, again).

They watched a game of chess, which was held on a huge, life-size chessboard. Minerva McGonagall presided over events like a hawk, although she spared a wry smile and a speculative, raised eyebrow for Luna.

Lachlan MacFusty dragged them off to the Quidditch pitch to watch the students vs. staff match, and Charlie got drafted onto the staff team as emergency replacement Seeker during the second half when Professor Flitwick got horrible motion sickness. Charlie lost himself in the swell of cheers when he caught the Snitch. When he landed, he gave Luna his Snitch, forgot his embarrassment, and kissed her in full view of all the spectators.

Later, with the sweet and sticky taste of candyfloss on his lips and his arm around Luna, Charlie stood with a very special group of people and watched the yearly fireworks display (provided by WWW, of course).

The night show exploded above them like shooting stars, reflecting in the mirror-still lake and doubling the mesmerising effect. The final rocket blazed high into the sky, making a whistling sound before it crackled into gold and red sparkling text:

_And they all lived happily ever after._


End file.
